Strange Bedfellows
by chris dee
Summary: Cat—Tales 37: Luthor resigned, Riddler knows, Talia is... Story Concludes in Chapter 10Evolution
1. Dateline Washington

**Strange Bedfellows  
**_Chapter 1: Dateline Washington _

* * *

**LUTHOR RESIGNS**  
Washington D.C. —Alexander Luthor, 43rd President of the United States, resigned his office effective 12:00 noon today amidst mounting evidence in the ongoing KentGate controversy. The President continues to deny any involvement or prior knowledge of the attempted assassination of Daily Planet reporter Clark Kent. Kent's bestseller _Strange Bedfellows_ has been creating headaches for the White House…

Bruce had read The Gotham Times account twice. He skimmed the headline and opening paragraph one final time before setting down the newspaper with a grunt of satisfaction. The Times was more restrained in its account than the Daily Planet, but that was understandable. The Planet's feud with Luthor was well known, even before his election. They had plagued him when he was a corrupt business tycoon, they continued to plague him when he became President, and now he was implicated in the attempted murder of one of their star reporters.

Bruce shook his head at Luthor's insane miscalculation. Other newspapers, like the Gotham Times, maintained a detached tone. They were going out of their way to preserve the appearance of neutral dispassionate reporting. But the fact was that the most conservative media, the ones that had always been most supportive of Luthor, could not be unaffected by the nature of the scandal: it was one of their own, a journalist, that Luthor tried to have killed.

"You can't possibly drink hot coffee with your mouth twitching that way, Bruce. Why don't you just have your laugh and get it over with."

Bruce glanced up across the breakfast table at a pair of amused green eyes scanning him while a slow finger stroked seductively around the rim of her coffee cup.

"Nothing about Luthor is funny," he pronounced.

"Oh come on, even you can't pretend The Post's version wasn't funny. I mean, they got that Superman and Batman were involved taking him down, but other than that… _Pffft_, Lex flying around Metropolis hopped up on Venom in a dayglow spacesuit?"

Bruce glared. He refused to acknowledge tabloids like The Post on principle and he wasn't about to start now.

"He looked like a Tylenol capsule decked out for Mardi Gras."

Bruce refused to acknowledge the Post, and he certainly wasn't going to admit to…

"Don't strain yourself holding back the twitch, Bruce. I've seen the new wallpaper on your desktop."

"Selina—"

"Scanned from page six, I believe."

"Selina—"

"Supes looks quite pissed."

"Selina."

"You look quite sexy."

"Admit it. You liked that story. The pair of you enjoyed that win a lot more than beating back a parkful of berserkers and gargoyles, that's for damn sure. And you kind of like the Post reflecting it all in their crazy funhouse mirror."

"We did what needed to be done. Neither of us enjoyed it."

Selina shook her head with an expression at once affectionate, amused, and sad. "You really do believe that, don't you. And I'll bet you don't have a thing for bad girls in purple either."

"Impossible woman," Bruce growled, tossing down his napkin. Then he walked across to her side of the table and kissed her cheek. "Are you going into town today? I could meet you after work, quick drink and a bite at d'Annunzio's?"

"Sure," she purred. "Now go run off with your newspaper so I won't see you chortling all over that headline."

"Nothing about Luthor is funny," he repeated over his shoulder as he left the room.

It wasn't. As much as he was happier waking up in a world where Lex Luthor was not President, as much as he could take satisfaction from his role in making that a reality, he could not honestly say he felt anything like the enjoyment or amusement Selina attributed to him.

For one thing, there was the ease with which it all played out. Batman was never entirely comfortable when he could capitalize on an enemy's mistakes. The stupider the mistake, the greater likelihood that it was a trap. Even if, as in this case, there was no reason to think the mistake suspicious. Luthor's hubris was legendary. That he would try to kill Clark was perfectly in character. That he wouldn't really try to hide it was also, shockingly, in character. Batman could easily trace out Luthor's reasoning. He would have been convinced his position made him untouchable. There could be no proof tying him absolutely to Kent's death, and it would be useful to have a few whispers – like there were about Diana and Prince Charles. It would be known that he was dangerous, that he was capable of it. That, Luthor would reason, would deter other reporters from digging where they shouldn't. With all the resources at his disposal as President, with Black Ops Special Forces that would have been untraceable (although no more successful considering the target's Kryptonian biology), Luthor hired a sniper with ties to DEMON. With Talia Head, the Demon Head's daughter, running his company (into the ground) while he was president.

Only he didn't figure on Kent surviving, or of the uncannily knowing detective work bringing one fact to light after another. There would never be enough proof to impeach and indict him. Batman knew it even though Clark's optimism insisted to the last that it might be possible. But there was enough. Batman knew, from the moment Luthor took the oath of office, that this day would come. They couldn't rightly move against a democratically elected President. They couldn't. It crossed an uncrossable line and both heroes knew it. They couldn't act until Luthor himself crossed a line. Once he took that step, once he became a criminal, then it all became possible. Every protocol Bruce had in place for the President's removal had Luthor's own misconduct as a necessary first step. Then it was crimefighting. And crimefighting was what Batman did better than anybody in the world. By the fourth day after the shooting, Luthor found himself under such a cloud it was impossible for him to continue as President. He resigned "for the good of the office," knowing it was the only way to salvage even a fraction of his reputation. This way there would be some, however few, that still saw him as a good man and a good president who was smeared.

Whether that would be enough to ever rebuild his legacy remained to be seen.

* * *

"Rise and shine!" Barbara sang as she accosted her sleeping husband with a breakfast tray and morning newspaper. "Breakfast in bed, for my sexy bird."

The tantalizing aromas of cinnamon, coffee, and bacon penetrated Dick's sleepy fog a few seconds before conscious thought. He smiled down at the tray before him and blinked, connecting the happy aromas with the sight of French toast, a "Love the librarian" coffee mug, and _ –PANIC!_ Conscious thought had shrugged off the last of the groggies and caught up with the rest of his brain, and that first conscious thought of the day was one of alarm.

"What's the occasion?" he asked, hoping his voice didn't reveal the wild acrobatics his mind was engaged in as he frantically tried to recall if he'd missed the anniversary of a first date, first kiss, first team-up against a costumed villain…

"No occasion," Barbara answered happily.

Dick eyed her warily. He picked up a fork warily, and he gave the French toast a suspicious poke. "French toast stuffed with –is that custard? –sprinkled with cinnamon _and_ powder sugar. Bacon extra crispy. 'Love the librarian' mug. Babs, c'mon."

"Do I need a reason to show my sexy bird how much I love him?"

Dick performed his best recreation of Bruce scrutinizing Zogger logs.

Barbara grimaced. "Party poop," she said. "I just wanted you to get up so I could tell you the news. And since you didn't get back from Bludhaven until after five, I figured if I was going to wake you up this early, the least I could do was make your favorite—"

"How early is it?" Dick asked, looking around for the clock. "8:30!" he gulped when he saw it. "You woke me at 8:30 when you knew I only got in at – Babs, that's like less than three hours sleep."

"Don't be such a wuss, Dickie; it's not like we've got anything doing today. So you've got all day long to rest up."

"I _was_ resting up," he complained.

Barbara took the fork deliberately from his fingers, cut off a bite of French toast, and dangled it enticingly before his mouth. He resisted for about ten seconds before snapping at it in an aggressive, but vanquished, gesture of surrender.

"Okay okay," he said, waving the white flag energetically as he chewed, "you win, you're my gazette. Tell me, my all-seeing Oracle, all the news I missed while I was in Bludhaven for nine whole hours last night. Long as I can eat while you do it."

"Azrael is back," Barbara began, wasting no time getting to the headline.

"Back from the dead?" Dick asked acidly. "Neat trick."

"He wasn't dead; you know that perfectly well. That's just the Post being the Post."

"Darn." Dick sighed melodramatically. "Even the Gotham Post could get one right occasionally. Don't you think? Just to keep us off-balance…. Oh well, since he's not dead, where has Captain Lugnut been?"

"Undercover. You've heard about the Kishley-Krull divorce, right?"

"Margo Kishley and Ted Krull, sure who hasn't? Both movie stars, both famous, both rich, both hot tempers—"

"Exactly. Well couple months back before it all went public, Az stumbled onto some information that looked a lot like Ted Krull was considering the quicker, less expensive, less-damaging-to-his-reputation divorce alternative."

"Having his wife killed."

"Yep. 'Accident' while she was shooting on location in Rumania. So Azrael infiltrated the film shoot to protect her and in the course of it, he found a lot more going on with that film crew: espionage and drug smuggling. He followed the trail through the circuit of film festivals, that's what wound up taking so long."

"And you knew all about this the whole time?"

"No, I just got the story once he got back to town, showed up on my radar again last—"

"And you've been bursting to tell someone since last night."

Barbara bit her lip in a guilty manner.

"Ah, I see. You told Bruce. But Bruce already knew. He's annoying that way, isn't he."

"He's insufferable. 'Toronto Film Festival ended Thursday. Two days to make sure the locals didn't mess up the paperwork. One day R&R. One day travel time. He's back right on schedule. Grunt.'"

"My poor Barbara."

* * *

The most distressing thing about Bruce's decision to forego the Idiot Fop routine was the revelation of how ingrained his antics had become. Bruce knew he was an intelligent man. He had assumed the role of a shallow airhead as camouflage. He never dreamed, never dreamed for one moment, that it would become a habit he couldn't break any time he chose. Yet here he was at the entrance to the executive elevator, swiping his access card two –three –four times until he lined up the magnetic strip properly with the scanner.

The more conspicuous aspects of the Fop act had been easy enough to jettison: Selina was his escort now wherever he went. He was no longer photographed with an ever-changing string of bimbos. And he no longer had those women's inane blather to repeat about the books, current events, and conversations they missed the point of so consistently.

It was things like this, the unconscious mannerisms, that he was finding hard to shrug off. He had always tempered the act at Wayne Enterprises. The company's welfare was too important to too many people. He couldn't allow himself to seem truly stupid, so he opted instead for more subtle hints about his intellect. Hints that were open to interpretation. He knew he didn't appear clever, here in the building that bore his name, bungling with his keycard each and every time he made for the executive suite. But he didn't look like an absolute idiot unless the viewer was already disposed to see him as such.

That had been his theory every time he _deliberately_ screwed up scanning the card. But he was having a hard time seeing it that way when he caught himself doing it unconsciously.

It was that thought which accounted for his sour expression exiting the elevator into the Executive Suite on the very morning he should have been beaming with pleasure.

"Good morning, Mr. Wayne," Lily greeted him at the reception desk.

"Good morning, Mr. Wayne," Moira Selmon echoed from her new office.

"Good morning, Bruce," Lucius beamed, happily snapping into step beside him as he walked to his office door. "And '_Hail to the chief who in triumph advances._'"

"Morning, Lucius." Bruce acknowledged the greeting before chastising, "It's fine to be happy about it, okay. But let's not strut. It's tacky."

"Bruce, Come on, it's payday. LexCorp is finished. They're in default on all their loans, it's all ours now. Just like you predicted all those months ago."

"It was there for anybody to see that knew what they were looking for, Lucius. That woman had no business running a company; we all knew that. They've been hemorrhaging cash for years now. She could keep the losses off the income statements for a while by selling assets. But she couldn't hide it on the flow of funds. It's all there: Cash going out and not coming in, so she sells a plane. When those reserves dry up, she leverages a couple patents. Then a radio station, then the _building_."

"And now that they're in default, all those assets go to whoever's holding the paper. Which is you, because you've been buying up the LexCorp debts for months now. Bruce, this is a huge victory. And you say 'don't strut'?"

"LexCorp is the biggest employer in Metropolis, Lucius. Close to a million people woke up this morning not knowing if they still have jobs because Talia Head is— in my office." Bruce concluded the sentence in a very different way than he planned to when he opened his office door and saw the visitor seated primly before his desk.

* * *

"We're not officially open to the public for hours yet," Sly called to the visitor spreading his paperwork over several tables in the Iceberg dining room. "But if you want a cup of coffee or something, you just give a holler, okay Mr. Nigma?"

Edward Nigma gave Sly a thumbs up, then he cracked his knuckles and stretched out his arms before he resumed organizing his papers. From the office doorway, Oswald Cobblepot watched the exchange and returned to his desk with a disgusted kwak. Nigma heard the noise but ignored it. He had too much to do to waste time on whatever mini-dramas were going on between Penguin and his bartender.

"A WIT MEETS TOON," he murmured, subconsciously making an anagram for 'no time to waste.' "No time to waste, no time to waste, no time to waste."

It would be his best crime spree ever. He could operate in the style of his fellow rogues. Taking inspiration from the very pages of the Gotham Post, he could torment the Dark Knight with the most tantalizing clues all tied to the distortions that ridiculous tabloid offered the public as Killer Croc, Scarecrow, Catwoman, Two-Face, Poison Ivy, Mad Hatter… He had ranked them all, assigning a mathematical value to the degree the Gotham Post distorted their appearance, personality and methodology. He could now proceed through the list, one by one, devising clues drawn from—

"Can I help you?" Eddie muttered, noting the presence that appeared over his shoulder.

"Just curious what you're doing over here, Mr. Nigma," Sly said amiably, as he stood there looking over the tabloids, sipping coffee.

"I needed space to spread out these newspapers and organize my clippings."

"Don't you have a hideout?"

Eddie's face transformed, expressing the most violent revulsion. "What comes of the untended hideout when the Prince of Puzzlers is incarcerated, Sly? As you know, since the defection of _my darling_ _Doris_," he pronounced these syllables with controlled disgust, "I have been without a henchwench. There was no one to tend to the hideout while I was in Arkham. In my absence, something crawled into the air conditioner and died."

"Oh gag."

"Quite. The air is unbreathable. I'm airing it out. With luck, maybe I can go back by July."

"Hm. So that's why you're working here?"

Nigma nodded slowly, as if to say he was trying to, barring interruptions. Sly took the hint.

"I'm going to be down in the basement checking the inventory. Let me know if you need anything."

As soon as Sly had gone, Nigma went back to work. He didn't get far before another presence waddled into his field of vision and then moved behind him, hovering over his shoulder just as Sly had done. Penguin was a fellow-rogue, one of Riddler's own stature, and he was letting Eddie use the nightclub to work on his project. Eddie knew he couldn't ignore Oswald or brush him off as he had Sly.

"Which of these pictures do you think is further off on Selina?" Eddie asked, looking down on two different artist renderings clipped from the Gotham Post.

"The goggles," Oswald said instantly.

"But the ears on this new one, and the whiskers on the mask, isn't that kind of – weird?"

"It isn't good, I'll grant you" Oswald agreed, "But it's not as bad as the goggles. And at least the whisker one has her hair right."

"Okay, goggles it is."

"You want the one that is worse? You looking to give blood the hard way?"

"A DEED MYTH MOMS SNOT, Oswald old man, A DEED MYTH MOMS SNOT… Method to my madness, that is."

Oswald quacked and waddled off. Eddie watched him go, his wheels turning as he mentally deconstructed the Penguin's return to the helm of his Iceberg empire. Nigma was fairly certain the original "mutiny" was exactly what Sly and Greg claimed. Oswald had gone to pieces after that "Lark" affair, and his bartender and former bouncer took over the business, Sly running the legitimate nightclub and Greg managing the criminal concerns, to keep both operations afloat. When Oswald pulled himself together, they were more than willing to hand back control.

Oswald pretended to go along, but Eddie knew he was far too paranoid to really believe them. That would explain why he kept Sly on: Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.

That being the case, he was probably worried about Greg more than Sly. Greg who returned to whatever he was doing for DEMON in Chinatown once he was no longer needed at the Iceberg. That would be a worry for Oswald. Eddie was sure of it…

The only thing he didn't know, Nigma reflected as he looked down onto the tables full of Post clippings, was if this curious Iceberg tango could be of any use in his upcoming scheme.

* * *

The office door closed behind Lucius, leaving Bruce alone with Talia. He checked his watch theatrically.

"Well let's see, it's all of 45 minutes since your mismanagement of LexCorp made those kidnapping photos irrelevant. What kept you, Talia?"

"You mock me, Beloved. You allowed that horrible woman to blackmail me with photographs you know existed only because of my father's need to test worthy lieutenants…"

Bruce sighed. There it was, only four words in, "Beloved."

Selina had shut it off for a while. She had kept Talia out of their lives with the threat to make those photos public. Ra's had done it before, many times, shown pictures of Talia, bound and gagged, allegedly kidnapped, to some individual in whom he'd taken an interest. He did it to test their resourcefulness in "rescuing" her. While Talia was running Luthor's company, she couldn't afford to have those pictures in print as "illicit bondage photos of the LexCorp CEO." Now that she had no more reputation to protect, she wasted no time. Here she was, in his office, making up for lost chances to address him as—

"Beloved, surely you must realize, I have done this all for you. I broke your enemy's power for you. I delivered up the whole of his empire to your hand. Could that filthy slut serve you half so well?"

"Talia, you didn't understand the first thing about your own product line or why it was successful. You poured massive sums into R&D 'reinventing' products until nobody would buy them anymore. Then you poured _more_ massive sums into marketing to convince your ex-customers that all your mistakes and bad decisions were really a great improvement. You can't _insist_ things into being what they're not, Talia. It didn't work with corporate buyers any better than it did with… with me. You never turned those sales around, despite all those ads and all those press releases. And you are _never_ going to become dear to me by calling me beloved. Can you understand that, Talia? Or is it too adult a concept for you?"

"Your mind is so quick, My Beloved, your understanding so penetrating. I knew you would see at once what I was doing. Our minds share such splendid synchronicity."

"So that's it. You've given reality a paintjob again and decided your epic incompetence was really a brilliant plan and you did it for me. Fine. Now that you're warmed up, let's see how long it takes you to rearrange this reality: Talia, I don't love you. I never did, I never will. You are not welcome in my office, in my home, or in my city. I am happy with Selina. If you want to be happy, move on."

Bruce knew it was a futile exercise. It would take her less than five minutes to transmogrify his words into an idea she found more palatable. He tried anyway, knowing it to be a lost battle, because that is what heroes do.

He also used that five minute window to eject her from his office. She was in the express elevator before she could complete her rewrite of his thoughts and feelings. She was being escorted down to the street before she could enlighten him about what he really felt and how he should have expressed it. That might not be what 'heroes' do, Bruce told himself, but if he was a hero, he was also a man. And a man had his limits.

* * *

…to be continued…

The hidden truth about Luthor's resignation will be revealed in **_JLAin't: I, Superhero._**


	2. Sims, Riddles and If

**Strange Bedfellows  
** _Chapter 2: Sims and Riddles_

* * *

Jean Paul Valley expertly juggled his key ring, the pizza box, and the plastic bag containing the latest Sims expansion pack. This was going to be great.

**_You are in high spirits, Mortal, _**the voice in his head noted.

_I am, Az. Best thing about being back in Gotham: decent pizza. We got three hours before patrol. Gonna see what all is new for the Sims._

**_Must you waste our time with those foolish computer games? _**

_I must. Get used to it, Az: I'm a geek. I have geek-fun._

**_If we must spend time at that machine, I would prefer to play Dark Forces. _**

_Nope. You were at the helm all through Rumania, in Berlin, in Cannes, in Toronto. Enough already. I need this._

**_When we are working on a case, Mortal, it must surely be understood—_**

_Yes, of course, Az. But it was a long case. It feels like when I was a computer programmer, when I'd get back from a week's vacation the backlog was so bad, I wound up more exhausted than before I left._

**_Very well. Take these three hours and refresh yourself. While you restore your mortal faculties, I shall prepare myself for this evening's patrol._**

_Peachy._

* * *

In the satellite cave deep beneath the Wayne tower, Bruce returned the spare Batman costume to its vault. He buttoned up the dress shirt he'd worn to the office that morning, omitting the jacket and tie. He noted several wrinkles from the careless way he'd abandoned the shirt on the vault floor in his hurry to answer the signal. At home Alfred always appeared in the interim, cleared away whatever he had been wearing and left a laundered replacement. Bruce wondered absently, as he walked out to the main chamber of the cave, if he shouldn't run up to the penthouse for a fresh shirt before he went home. That way he could send this one to be drycleaned and not have to suffer Alfred's barbs if he went home in this wrinkled one.

Any other time Bruce wouldn't trouble himself. Alfred was an employee, after all. But even he could only push the butler so far. And after ordering him to make that phone call…

There were some ways, Bruce reflected, that his life was simpler pre-Selina. Not as full and not as happy, but simpler. Case in point: Dinner at d'Annunzio's.

If, back in the day, he had to stand up a date because of bat-business, he stood them up. He didn't need a good excuse; he didn't even need a _credible_ excuse. It was often to his _advantage_ if they saw through a blatant lie and threw a drink in his face at the first opportunity: a nice public breakup, with the bimbo _du jour_ reinforcing the playboy image for him, making a scene about all the other women he must amuse himself with all those times he disappeared.

Selina knew the truth, and that should have made the whole thing simple. Something came up that Batman had to attend to…

But not when the something was a riddle.

Not when he had to tell her that Talia was back, that the 'wolfsbane' Selina had devised to keep her at bay had staledated, and now on top of all that, a riddle was sent to the GCPD containing a picture of that goggled insult the Post called Catwoman.

"Thanks a lot, 'Eddie'," Bruce growled at the packet of papers embossed with a question mark.

It was more convenient to work out of this cave for the moment. He had been in the city already, working at the office, when the signal went off. This cave was closer; the costume he kept here was closer. He had to return here anyway, and it would waste valuable time to return to the manor cave when he could just as easily analyze the evidence from this fully equipped base.

The fact that he wouldn't have to see Selina or risk her viewing the goggle-picture was a bonus.

_Here's a quandary: To begin with the fairest or the most maligned…_

Alfred was not happy about delivering that message, though. It's not like he hadn't done it a thousand times. "Call d'Annunzio's and have them tell whatshername-Gretta…" "Mandy, sir." "Whatever, tell her I was playing racquetball with Trump and pulled a hamstring." "Very good, sir."

Maybe this wasn't quite the same, but still. Alfred _was_ his servant, he _did_ have something come up, and he asked his butler to deliver the message for him as a simple expedient. It was pointless to let the ill-concealed disapproval of a "Very good, sir" distract him when he had important crimefighting matters to attend to.

_Here's a quandary: To begin with the fairest or the most maligned?  
Hook's ticking tormentor or the El Giza enshrined?  
The ancient legend of Ra or the urban legend of the sewer?  
The pot before the luck shall be the first after-skewer.  
15-2-10-7-4_

* * *

**OraCom Channel-1  
**..: Testing. Nightwing, you're at the docks? :..  
..: This is ship's purser Gofer Smith coming to you from the Lido Deck. :..  
..: Very funny. Proceed to location 2 and channel 2 :..

**OraCom Channel-2  
**..: I don't understand why I have to change locations. Can't you just tweak all the GPS signals and OraCom links from the one…:…  
..: No I can't. Tweaking means factoring in all the atmospheric conditions. The water, the pollution, the altitude… :…  
…: Sorry I asked. Okay, where am I now? :…  
…: Roof of the downtown public library. :…  
…: Check. :..  
…: Proceed to location 3 and switch back to channel 1 :…

**OraCom Channel-1**  
…: There a reason we can't get Robin, Spoiler and Canary or somebody to help with this instead of making me do'em all? :…  
…: Because I made you French toast. :…  
…: Knew I was going to pay for that one way or another. :…  
…: Proceed to location 4… :…

* * *

Bruce scrutinized the clippings that had come with the riddle. They were all faked photographs or artists' renderings of his enemies, they were all from the tabloids, and they were all free of any physical evidence beyond a single fingerprint the Batcomputer had confirmed as a perfect match for Edward Nigma.

The computer was cranking away at an algorithm he just completed to analyze the images for any hidden patterns. He had it searching the content, the rogues included and excluded. He had it analyzing the dates of the issues the images were clipped from. And he had a new routine to detect any sort of steganography or coding hidden in the pixels themselves. Bruce knew he had to give the routine a full twenty minutes before drawing any conclusions, but his gut told him the analysis would come up empty.

There was something about the riddle itself that told him. He singled out the two images it seemed to refer to most pointedly.

"What on earth are you doing down here?"

Bruce turned and acknowledged the interruption with a curt nod.

"Nightwing," he said blandly.

"O, I'm at location 12. Signing off for a bit… Because I am… Well fine then I'll make you scrambled eggs… I can call it an omelet if you want me to, but you know it's going to be scrambled eggs. Wing out."

Nightwing removed his mask and shrugged apologetically at Bruce. "Helping her recalibrate the OraCom," he explained.

Bruce returned his attention to the pictures spread out on the desk and Dick walked over to look. "What are we—oh man, what's their thing with those goggles?"

Bruce glanced up at him sternly without moving his head.

"I don't think the goggles are the salient issue here, do you?"

"No, I guess not. This is Riddler?"

Bruce pointed wordlessly to the envelope embossed with the question mark.

"The fairest… and the most maligned…" Dick murmured as he read the riddle.

"Croc and Catwoman," Bruce said crisply. "Selina's press might be far from flattering, but bad as it is, it pales in comparison to calling Croc a cannibal."

"'Most maligned' is still a matter of opinion—"

"Read on. Hook's ticking tormentor, Captain Hook – the clock in the crocodile."

"Got it. Urban legend – giant reptiles in the sewer – although that's mostly alligators isn't it?"

"Nigma will take liberties when it suits him."

"And this last?"

"Crock pot."

"And 'El Giza', 'legend of Ra', 'luck' is all Catwoman?"

"Cats are associated with luck, either bad or good, in most cultures," Bruce ran down the evidence crisply, as if ticking items off a mental list. "El Giza is site of the pyramids – Egyptians worshipped cats, plenty of shrines with cat heads on women's bodies, the legend of Ra says he transformed into a cat to slay a giant serpent."

"And 'the fairest'?"

"They're friends," Bruce grumbled. He certainly considered Selina the most beautiful of the criminals he'd faced over the years, but he didn't like hearing it from the likes of Nigma.

"Could be a way to steer you off Tom Blake," Nightwing mentioned. "The Catman. All the cat references apply to him too."

"His picture isn't included," Bruce noted.

"Ah. Any idea what it means, or what these numbers or the 'first after-skewer' might be?"

Bruce shook his head, his eyes never leaving the clippings.

* * *

Azrael thought the lookout atop the SysCo building made an excellent vantage point. He could look into Gotham Plaza, through the Plaza and down Broadway, or across to the roof of the Moxton building, so popular with the Batman's operatives that a few hours observation of that one summit would acquaint him with everyone that was active in a given night.

Jean Paul did not share Azrael's delight with their position. The angle at which Az was looking down onto the Plaza reminded him of The Sims.

**_You are sulking, Mortal. Did you not enjoy your recreation?_**

_You know I didn't, Az. We came out to patrol an hour before we needed to because I was not having a good time._

**_I don't understand why. I thought the representation of Infinity you created was quite profound. _**

Jean Paul mentally sighed. His SIM persona was residing in a small, Spartan apartment, much like his own. He had sat alone at his computer desk watching his SIM sit alone at his computer desk, hovering over the screen where yet another tiny SIM was pictured.

_My game-self is a geek with no life, Az. How much does that suck? _

**_You should have played Dark Forces, Mortal. You would have found more satisfaction in battling for the forces of light in the endless war against evil._**

_We're doing that now, Az. A game is supposed to give you an escape from what you do in real life._

**_Then why did your tiny avatar sit at his computer playing the same game you did?_**

**_The other tiny avatars were gathered around a hot tub._**

_Why is there never a mugger around when you need one?_

**_Many were female._**

_Welcome back to Gotham. You'd think at least a drug deal goin' down. _

**_Scantily clad._**

_Hey look! Guy down there selling fake Rolexes! Let's go get 'em! _

* * *

"First after-skewer," Dick bit his lip, repeating the one phrase that bothered him in the riddle. "First-after. Not strictly opposites like first and last, but it sounds funny. After-skewer. What's an after-skewer?"

Bruce ignored him and concentrated on the numbers.

Dick never found "bat-mode" conducive to problem solving, so he resorted to a favorite pastime from his days as Robin: needling Batman about a certain soft spot.

"Meow-Meow-Meow-Meow," he sang.

"Richard."

"Huh? Oh sorry, just thinking out loud."

"Sure."

"She does fit in somehow or other. You said it yourself. Giza, Ra, fairest. Who else could it be? Plus we got the goggle-pic right here."

"Richard."

"Meow-Meow-Meow-Meow…"

"I can still send you to your room, you know."

"Poor Selina, how she must hate those bastards at the Post. They make up shit about her past, about her work, about her personal life, and then to add insult to injury they make her look like this… Jesus, talk about getting skewered."

Both men's eyes met in a moment of electric comprehension.

"After— _Post_. Post means after."

"Skewer."

"Post-skewer. First Post skewer. Croc is the first Post-skewer?"

"Computer, VOX override. Suspend current operation, apply analysis matrix Gotham Post, display relevant articles on Killer Croc."

"Which article do we start with?"

"The first, then the worst, then the one this picture is clipped from. And if that doesn't work, we brute force it."

"What are the numbers again?"

"15-2-10-7-"

Slow down, one at a time… 15. Got the first article on him here. Fifteen letters in… **_T_**. What was next? 2? Two letters more…**_E_**…"

"10."

"8-9-10… **_A_**. T-E-A"

"7"

"**_R_**"

"4"

"**_S_**. T-E-A-R-S Tears. Son of a bitch. Crocodile tears."

"Computer, VOX override. New search: theme targets, search term: tears. Display main screen and relay to OraCom." Bruce stood and headed to the costume vault to change back into costume. "Dick," he called back from the vault, "when it comes up, you prioritize that list, split it into thirds. Have Oracle call in Robin, we'll each take a third and—"

"Slow down, Bruce. No need. Only one target here, and it looks like we're too late."

Batman raced out of the vault, cursing; his cape, cowl and gauntlets still in his hands. Nightwing had his right hand to his earpiece. With his left, he held up three fingers.

Batman hurriedly donned the cowl and switched the OraCom to channel 3 in time to hear _…: Bergdorf's department store, ground floor, fine jewelry, twenty minutes ago. They just added a boutique for a new jewelers called Gocciolina, specializes in teardrops. :…_

"Understood, O. Thank you." Nightwing answered.

"Damn," Bruce hissed.

_… : That you, boss? : …_

"Affirmative, O."

_… : Not sure what kept you from dinner tonight, but I sure want to thank you. After you cancelled on her, Selina came by with one of those desserts from d'Annunzio's. You know the ones they say are better than—:…_

"Oracle, the security tapes from the robbery—"

_…: Already uploaded to your opencase partition in the main cave system. I made a subdirectory 'Teardrop.' So how long were you guys going to keep that fudge-raspberry torte a secret? :…_

"Batman out."

* * *

Talia paced back and forth in her hotel suite, an agitated nausea coiling in her muscles, propelling her body to either move or burst into convulsions of nauseous rage. An hour in the hotel's limited "fitness center" did nothing to drive this intolerable _ FRUSTRATION_ from her system.

Why could she not make him understand? It was she that he loved, she that he always loved, would always love and was destined to be with. Why couldn't she _ MAKE_ him see that?

It was the Cat's sorcery, obviously. Somehow she bewitched him. It was understandable if he wanted to amuse himself while they were parted. But now that they could be together, now that she had come to him, there was no reason for him not to have the wretched slut sent away. The only reason her Beloved would not have done this already is that he must actually believe those horrid things he had said to her. He must actually believe himself happy. Clearly the wily Cat-witch had used that time close to him to ensnare his mind.

But she would free him. She would show him what filth he had taken to his bosom. She would show him what the Cat really was, and once her spell was broken, then he would realize how he truly felt.

* * *

Bruce crept silently into the darkened bedroom. He slipped under the sheets with a stealth the bed's other occupant would have admired if she'd been awake to witness it – but that would have defeated the purpose. He lay there for a long minute, watching Selina sleep, watching the sheet rise and fall gently with her breathing.

It was a long time since Bruce faced up to his conflicted feelings about her, about her ties and friendships with certain rogues. "Deceiving myself is not a luxury I can afford," he had said.

The goggles had nothing to do with his canceling dinner.

She wouldn't _like_ the picture if she saw it in the cave. She wouldn't be _happy_ about Talia being back. But Selina was a rational adult, not some raving Arkham case. She would deal with the situation just as she had the cancelled dinner. _Stuff happens, Stud; we adjust. _

She certainly knew about the Post's outrages before now, one more picture wouldn't come as any surprise. And she had to know the wolfsbane wasn't a permanent solution.

So…

Why did he cancel?

Why _really_ did he cancel that dinner date?

Riddle me that, _Eddie_.

They were friends. She'd gone to him for help in the past. He'd come to her.

It was a gray area.

Couldn't anybody see that that was a gray area? They were friends. It's not like he was afraid she'd go back to stealing or anything. But a twinge whenever Eddie popped up again was natural enough. Wasn't it? Not much of one. Just a nagging… little… if.

* * *

...to be continued...


	3. Playing Catchup

**Strange Bedfellows  
** _Chapter 3: Playing Catchup_

* * *

It should not have been possible to break Zogger. Bruce knew that; he designed it. He built Strategic Self-Mutating Defensive Regimen 4, somehow designated 'Zogger' in Dick's teenage years, to be the perfect tool for drilling fighting skills until the movements became reflex.

In his heart, Bruce knew that if he'd been using the system as it was intended, he never would have broken it.

He was only trying to focus. He was only trying to silence the half-dozen issues bouncing and echoing through his mind so that Batman could focus. There was a dangerous criminal at large. Last night Riddler had kicked off a new crime spree with a decisive win. He had gotten away with his prize before Batman even suited up, almost before he had solved the riddle. He needed to focus. Obviously, he needed to focus. He had to get there first next time, before the crime even started, and end it. He had to stop these crimes and he had to put a stop to Riddler's sick schemes before he could cause real harm.

It was late when Bruce gave up on sleep and came down to the cave. He knew he wasn't as sharp as he should be to run the Strategic Self-Mutating Defense Regimen, so he selected the lowest setting. It was an elementary level created to introduce Robin to the system. It was never meant to run on Bruce's profile. He hadn't given it a moment's thought when he placed his thumb on the ID-panel to enter the fight area. He only thought of it as setting the mechanisms to the proper height and weight. It was only when the puncture-arm snapped off in his hand that he realized the attacks launched at him on his profile required a level of force in defending himself that the elementary settings could never withstand— Before he could complete the thought, the alpha arm launched itself at his head. He reacted automatically, with a powerful block that ruptured the pressure chamber at the joint. Hot steam oozed from the crack, widening it, until finally the whole joint broke open. The steam started pouring out in thick billows and the whole system seized with a mechanized groan. The remaining attack arms wobbled from the sudden loss of pressure. Then… there was only the squeak of bats unsettled by the disturbance below.

Batman was stoic, standing there surrounded by the lifeless carcass of a crimefighting tool that had served him well. Strategic Self-Mutating Defense Regimen 5 was overdue, anyway. But it would be weeks before he had the time to build it.

* * *

In a small, innocent-looking curio shop in the heart of Gotham City's Chinatown, the man who was born Greg Brady – renamed Gr'oriBr'di when Ra's al Ghul hired him to head the Gotham City operation – listened to the new agent's surveillance report on the Iceberg Lounge.

Greg was, by far, the most patient and least-bloodthirsty lieutenant in the DEMON organization. He himself had been a Joker henchman, and he felt a natural camaraderie with the men that was unusual in the strict caste system of DEMON. As such, Greg didn't always know how to deal with new arrivals like this Il'Nar.

Il'Nar had been an assassin. Since his arrival, he had twice offered to list all the men he had killed "for Esteemed Master Gr'oriBr'di's consideration." Greg concluded that Il'Nar was a very good assassin and was eager to recite his resume so 'Esteemed Master' would know to give him the really _good_ kills.

But Greg had no real use for an assassin, so he put Il'Nar on intelligence detail. He gave the newcomer the same first assignment he always gave: the Iceberg Lounge. Greg knew the Penguin's nightclub was the best instant introduction to the many costumed characters that populated the Gotham Underworld. And in about half the cases, it loosened the men up a bit. Greg had no idea what went on in the desert compounds that churned out these minions like so many mindless automatons, but he knew there was nothing like drunken Ghost Dragons having a Greenday sing-a-long to put that DEMON indoctrination into a proper perspective. Greg never expected Il'Nar to be one that loosened up. He just didn't seem the type. But Greg had sent him to the Iceberg all the same, since intelligence about the various rogue activities and particularly any run-ins with 'The Detective,' was an important part of DEMON's operation in Gotham.

It was this report Greg listened to now – and he wasn't at all sure what to make of it. Could it be a joke? Could Il'Nar be the kind of guy to pull his leg? It didn't seem likely. Guy that fresh off the boat offers to tell you about all the people he's killed didn't really seem like the prankster type.

"Riddler is working out of the Iceberg's backroom?" Greg asked skeptically.

"Yes, my lord."

"And you think he's living in the basement?"

"There were personal items kept there, my lord."

"I know I'm going to hate myself for asking this but… Il'Nar, what kind of personal items? I mean isn't it possible Cobblepot is just letting him store some stuff to—"

Il'Nar bowed and left the room while Greg was still speaking. He returned a minute later with a bulging duffel bag. He pulled the cord and began dumping small wads of green fabric onto the desk, causing Greg to jump back in surprised horror.

"Is that Ed Nigma's laundry?" he asked, voice quivering in dread.

"Yes, my lord."

"Get it off my desk," Greg ordered quickly.

"Yes, my lord."

"Er, thank you for the very um, _thorough_ report, Il'Nar. You better return that stuff to the Iceberg though before it's missed. And eh, to keep a low profile – when you're not leaving the other guy dead we like to 'keep a low profile' – so don't bring back any more, uh, 'visual aids' to go with your reports from now on."

"Yes, my lord."

Greg sighed. He thought of adding that it wasn't necessary to keep repeating the Yes-my-lords after every little thing. But he'd learned that the more fanatical minions could only handle one or two ideas at a time, and he definitely didn't want any other directives competing with NO MORE GREEN UNDERWEAR ON MY DESK.

"Is there anything else?" Greg asked, mostly to be polite so Il'Nar didn't have to gather up the dumped laundry in silence.

"There was speculation about the handmaid who stands at the door with the book of names."

"Raven. She's Ozzy's hostess. Cute little bird isn't she. Particularly when walking away," Greg winked to show that this kind of between-men banter was acceptable in his operation.

"The handmaid Raven," Il'Nar merely added the name to his report without acknowledging (or perhaps without comprehending) the joke. "There is speculation of her ties to the Scarecrow."

"Whoa-nonono. I think you're confused there, buddy. Scarecrow is the straw guy. Big into fear. Doesn't like bullies."

"Yes, my lord. Jonathan Crane the Scarecrow."

"I can see how you might be confused. Scarecrows are made to scare off _birds_, a raven is a kind of bird. But y'see the whole henchwench thing— I don't think Mr. Crane is exactly into the whole— eh— boy, how do I put this—"

"I am not speaking of my own observations, my lord. My report merely repeats what the hatted one was heard to say."

"This is from Mad Hatter? Well shoot, Hatter is never wrong about these things."

"As you say, my lord."

"Anything else?" Greg asked.

"The beacon of He Whose Name Must Not Be Spoken was lighted—"

"Batman. Here in Gotham, we just call him Batman."

"But my lord, it is death to speak the name of the Great One's mortal foe in the presence of—"

"Il-Nar, this one is a deal breaker. It's _Batman_. The light is the Bat-_signal_, the car is the _Batmobile_. Otherwise by the time you go through all the rigmarole to tell me the car's out front and he's coming in, he'll already be in here and I'll be scraping my jaw off the floor. 'kay?"

"This is an order, my lord?"

Greg paused, weighing the relative merits of Il'Nar adapting his speech to the Gotham standard vs. not having any more Riddler laundry dumped onto his desk.

"Nah, it's just a request. If you really want to go on calling Batman HWNMNBS, that's fine. Just remember – no more taking souvenirs from the intelligence missions, okay?"

"Yes, my lord."

* * *

"Well this is new," Selina purred with amusement. "In the past when you've interrupted my workout you waited until I actually _started_ my workout."

She stood in the doorway of her exercise room in her three-room suite across from the bedroom she shared with Bruce.

"This thing isn't bad for isolating muscle groups," he noted, bending the arm of her Bowflex in a slow deliberate move that caused the muscles of his forearm to bulge just before the bicep followed suit. "Smoother resistance than free weights."

"Mhm," she noted dryly, never taking her eyes off the swelling muscles.

"I adjusted the tension for the leg exercises, you'll want to make sure you change it back… Um. Hello?"

By now, Selina had come into the room and straddled the bench, resting her weight on his legs and stroking a finger down the bicep with slow, reverent delight. "Meowww," she breathed.

"Kitten," he said, a dry irony creeping into his voice as she kissed down the muscles of his arm, "do you mind if I borrow your exercise room for a while until I rebuild Strategic Self-Mutating Defense Regimen 4?"

"mmmmrrreworl," was the soft, feral reply.

Bruce stroked the back of her head for a moment, hugging her to him. Then he took a bit of her hair at the neck and gently pulled upwards, turning her head to face him.

"Selina… I have some news… you're not going to like it…"

* * *

In'Qel, a DEMON agent who was technically new to Gotham but having only been transferred from Bludhaven was far more receptive to Greg's methods, announced that the visitor Gr'oriBr'di summoned had now arrived.

"Thanks, In'Qel. Um, before you show him in. Have you guys done the jackelope thing to Il'Nar yet?"

"My lord?" In'Qel looked incredulous.

"Come on, I know all about it. Every time we get a new guy, you order pepper steak from Ho Sai Gai and tell them it's jackelope, an American delicacy, cross between a jack rabbit and an antelope."

In'Qel grinned. "Actually, my lord, we started getting pork instead, with the spicy mustard."

"Ah," Greg stifled a chuckle, "Of course, because the jackelope is such a hearty meat."

"Yes indeed my lord, quite gamy. It takes a very tangy sauce to stand up to it."

"Okay well have your fun, but go easy. Guy's got the cork in pretty tight."

"Sire?"

"Just go easy on him. Oh and when you place that order be sure you get me a fried rice and an order of spare ribs."

"Of course, my lord. Your guest, my lord."

"Hey, Sly!" Greg called out warmly as In'Qel showed his visitor in.

* * *

Bruce was very thoughtful walking down the stairs, across the great hall to the south drawing room, then on towards the library. Selina's reaction to the Talia news was… puzzling:

"She's back, eh? Well, I guess that's understandable. Since she lost her gig at LexCorp, she's only got three options left: back to daddy, find a new protector, or evolve."

It was a bigger riddle than Nigma had ever thrown at him.

She was absolutely calm. She was downright detached. Just one of those things. Like when he had to cancel plans they had made for some JLA emergency.

_"She's back, eh? Well, I guess that's understandable…"_

When she said it, Bruce remembered his hand moving instinctively towards the utility belt, which of course wasn't there. It was only when his fingers grazed the smooth warmth of Marc Cross leather that he realized what he was doing. It was more puzzling than any of Nigma's silly word games and a part of him moved instinctively to inspect the evidence for fingerprints, trace chemicals, or explosives.

Not that there was any rhyming note to analyze. There was just his girlfriend, still nestled on top of him from those few moments' play on the Bowflex, looking up at him with warm loving eyes…

_"Well, I guess that's understandable… she's only got three options left"_

He hadn't expected her to be a raving lunatic, but he certainly hadn't expected that.

_"…back to daddy, find a new protector," _

She wasn't happy about it, but she wasn't that upset either. Not unnerved or unsettled. Annoyed would be the strongest word he could fairly use.

"…_or evolve." _

It was good news certainly. He didn't have to deal with a riled cat on top of everything else. Talia was back and she would certainly pull something. Riddler was active and there was no guessing what he was up to until the next clue came in. But Bruce could relax and know that, whatever was going to happen in the next days and weeks, he wouldn't have to split his focus between it and wondering about Selina…

_"She's back, eh? Well, I guess that's understandable. Since she lost her gig at LexCorp, she's only got three options left: back to daddy, find a new protector, or evolve."_

His fingers moved again towards the utility belt, and again found only the soft gabardine of his civilian clothes.

* * *

Dick brought a breakfast tray laden with juice, eggs, and English muffins from the kitchen, then stopped in his tracks when he saw Barbara already up and sitting at her workstation.

He sighed, altering his path to set the tray gently beside her.

"That was supposed to be breakfast in bed," he told her, bending to kiss her cheek. "Incidentally Woman, I'm quite aware that you're an imposter. The real Barbara Gordon Grayson is not a morning person."

Barbara acknowledged the joke with a wry smile, took a muffin from the tray, and returned her attention to the screen. She conducted the rest of the conversation without moving her eyes from the computer.

"I was anxious to get into this riddle," she murmured. "I'm playing catch up here. Bruce didn't show it to me straight off."

"So you're working on it now? But we already solved it. It was tears, for the teardrop heist. The end."

"Killer Croc/Tears was only the first. He comes right out and says that. I want to take this whole thing apart and put it back together every which way before the next clue comes in."

Dick didn't argue. He was pretty sure the next riddles would follow the same puzzle-logic as the first: a clue pointing to a specific rogue and a numeric code. The key to the code would be a Gotham Post article about the villain in question. Find the right article, you have the key document to use the code. It didn't require any elaborate computer wizardry at this point, and deep down Barbara knew that. She was just prickly over not being given the riddle to start with, and this flurry of activity was the result.

"It wasn't an intentional slight, y'know," Dick mentioned, sneaking a portion of her eggs onto his own plate. "Bruce wanted to attack this one his own way. He would have brought you in on it soon enough."

"An omelet is supposed to be a solid half-moon of delicious golden-yellow…" she noted.

"…with the structural integrity to hold the ham and cheese in the middle. Yes, I know. And I can't do that. So until we get invited over to the manor again, you get scrambled eggs."

* * *

Bruce was so absorbed by his thoughts that he didn't notice he'd picked up an escort. Whiskers was following his left heel like a remora trails a shark, staying a precise six inches behind the foot however it moved. Bruce reached the grandfather clock, turned the hands to 10:47, and started automatically into the cave without realizing what was happening.

Suddenly a feline yeowl erupted behind his foot the same instant a cyclone of squeaky pandemonium started whirring overhead. Whiskers dashed back towards the clock passage and, finding the entrance closed, he ran back at Bruce, leaping frantically up his leg then climbing to his chest, whining piteously for protection from the wild squawking of flying mice. Bruce hurried back to the study, instinct blotting out the pain of tiny claws clamping into his flesh in a terrified effort to gain shelter from the bats under the nearest refuge – which happened to be his shirt.

"Okay fella," he told the cat calmly once they reached the quiet peace of the library. Not surprisingly, the cat didn't budge. "It's okay," Bruce added with a half-hearted pat.

But it wasn't 'okay', not at all. He had been unaware Batman had been _unaware_ of what was going around him. He had no idea what was happening until it erupted all around him. That kind of mistake he couldn't afford. That kind of mistake got you killed.

He went on stroking the trembling fur in silence for a minute or two. At last the cat relaxed the clawfists digging into Bruce's torso and looked up at him with a contented purr.

"Haven't you heard about curiosity?" he asked severely. "No, I guess you wouldn't have, not from Selina." He gave Whiskers a final rub between the ears, then grabbed the scruff of the neck, pulling the cat away from his shirt and setting him on a chair. "No more cave for you," Bruce instructed – but Whiskers had already decided the whole episode never happened and was studiously licking a paw.

Bruce returned to the cave, more alert than before, but angrier. He wasn't sure if he was angry at Selina, for being such a distraction, at himself, for letting her get to him, or at the little six pound furball that was only doing what came naturally, even if it did bring the whole situation to Bruce's attention in a way he couldn't ignore.

In his mind's eye, Bruce pictured Selina watching him waste time on this ridiculous question… Those damnable green eyes dancing with triumph, so pleased with her ability to steal his focus, even away from such important matters as…

"If you'd ever embraced Feline Logic, Bruce," the phantom cat chided, "you could just blame Eddie. If he hadn't picked such an inconvenient time to be going off with the riddles, you could give the demonspawn matter the attention it deserves…"

Bruce felt his lip twitch as the imaginary Selina started to fade, then snapped back into focus to add the afterthought "…not that she deserves much."

* * *

Sly looked at Greg incredulously.

"Jackelopes? That gag was like – summer camp, around 8th grade?"

"Most of these guys are playing catch up," Greg explained. "Not a lot of outside interests, so we start with the basics."

Both men relaxed, and the next few minutes were spent in polite chitchat before Greg changed the subject abruptly.

"Ozzy treating you okay?" he asked.

"It's a little awkward," Sly admitted, "but we're settling back into a routine. Few months, it'll be like it never happened."

"Still, until he trusts you again, probably going to be watching you, testing you, who knows whatall…"

"Eah," Sly made a dismissive wave. "I don't mind that. My first six months at the 'Berg was that way. It never stopped. All the other bartenders came and went, he couldn't figure out why I stayed if I wasn't up to something."

Greg chuckled.

"We all _know_ why you stayed, Man. How is _the Rocket_?"

Sly blushed, then laughed in return. "Haven't seen her. Don't want to. Look, I admit there was an attraction there once upon a time; she's a hottie." Sly stopped and sighed. "But she's _nuts_, Greg. I chased her for a year, nuthin. We had _one date_, she damn near got us killed. I go off to Florida, all of a sudden she wants me back? And then that whole catfight with Miss Isley, damn near burned the Iceberg down. Enough. Find me a nice normal girl that likes to go home at the end of the day, order a pizza, watch a video."

Greg smiled, but again steered the conversation back to the subject he'd invited Sly over to hear about.

"So the situation with you and Oswald, during the day like, when it's just the two of you before customers arrive. It's not too difficult."

"Nah, it's fine. 'Course it's a lot easier with Mr. Nigma there."

Greg's face betrayed no emotion, but inside he was relieved. It looked like Il'Nar —although an assassin that might consider his reassignment to spy as something of a demotion— was not actually making up tall tales just to mess with him. Having confirmed this much, Greg decided to probe on the rest of his agent's report.

"True what the grapevine's saying about Scarecrow and Raven?"

Sly shook his head. "I don't know _what's_ going on there. They say Mr. Hatter is never wrong, but I dunno. I didn't think Mr. Crane swung that way."

Greg nodded. "Me either. Guess we'll see."

* * *

Nearly every diamond sold in the United States, nearly half those sold throughout the world, pass through Gotham City's Diamond District. The insular world between 48th and 46th Streets, between 5th and 6th Avenue, feels more like an East European village than midtown Gotham, as flocks of Hassidic men in high hats and flapping black frock coats push past gawkers in leather miniskirts. During the day, the air is musical with the sounds of Yiddish blended with Spanish, Japanese and Urdu. At night, it becomes a cat's cradle of electric eyes, with the most sophisticated security systems in existence hidden behind the most unimposing storefronts.

The Parker Exchange was an oddity in this tiny community. Only a year old in an industry dominated by fifth and sixth generation businesses, they were playing catch up and they knew it. They'd found a shortcut to reputation in a flashy specialty: colored diamonds, the largest "fancy" diamonds available in yellow, pink, red, and blue.

Yellow diamonds, called "Canaries" in the trade, had made tempting prizes for both Catwoman and Penguin over the years. If the Parker Exchange had opened sooner, it's doubtful they would have made it to this first anniversary. But the Penguin had retired from active burgling - and while nobody was _quite_ sure about Catwoman's status after Selina Kyle did that stage show, insurance rates had been quietly adjusted on certain categories of jewels and artwork.

The Parker Exchange was therefore proud rather than fearful to celebrate their anniversary with a spectacular display of the Kimberly Canary. At 82 carats it was the eighth largest yellow diamond in the world and famous for its unequalled clarity.

A jewel of such importance would obviously tempt the greed of any number of evil-doers, so Azrael had been keeping a close eye on the Parker Exchange. Tonight he sensed something was wrong as soon as he approached the building, and he silenced the mortal's prattling about the Gotham Knights' chances against the Metropolis Meteors.

_Something wrong, Az? _the mortal asked.

**_There is… death… in the air, _**Azrael answered, before tuning out Jean Paul's thoughts completely from his consciousness.

Yes, there was death here – hovering – in expectation. Someone was ready to kill. – Azrael advanced cautiously into the building, noting subtle signs of an intruder. They knew enough to avoid setting off the alarms but had not bothered to shut off the security cameras. Azrael moved quickly, realizing such disdain for the living men that monitored those cameras must mean the thief intended their deaths. That is what he sensed from outside: the intruder must surely realize he would be spotted, must expect to be confronted by the guards, and his resolve to kill was so powerful that the aura of death was already present, as if the veins already oozed out the lifeblood of the vic—

Azrael stopped in his tracks, frozen by the sight before him.

**_Mortal? _**he called to his other half.

_Oh sure, just shove me aside and then—_

**_Mortal, I wish to know your view of what it is we are seeing. _**

_Uh… what do you think it is, Az?_

**_It looks like the Feline. _**

_Y-yeah. I'd say so._

**_You concur? _**

_Definitely a woman. Definitely a cat-getup. Purple. Ears. Tail. Um. I thought she wasn't stealing anymore? _

**_This establishment houses valuable gemstones including a canary diamond that fits in well with her 'theme'. _**

_Yeah I guess. And they're not exactly open for business this time of night._

**_So you concur. It is Catwoman, and she is here for dire criminal purpose? _**

_Uhhhhhh _

**_Mortal, while the criminal is taking some considerable time dismantling that display base, our time is not unlimited. If you would please reach a decision… _**

_Since when do you ask for my opinion on a crimefighting thing?_

_Since it's Catwoman? I mean, er, since we think it's Catwoman?_

**_Our previous confrontations with the Feline were not – satisfactory. As you have frequently reminded me— _**

_You accused her of stealing nerve gas for terrorists – something she would never do as everybody in this town seemed to know and most of them tried to tell you, but you went right ahead because you were Batman – and she will never, ever forgive us._

Azrael said nothing, but Jean Paul experienced a sensation he had not felt since childhood when his father was about to lose his temper.

_**That is why I am asking you to confirm my reading of the present situation, Mortal. That is Catwoman, she is up to no good—** _

_You are NOT thinking of confronting her, Az _

_**She is a criminal. She is intending mortal injury on the guards here. Our duty—** _

_No, Az. Catwoman doesn't do that. Everybody knows that too. I don't know what she's doing over there, but it… oh man, I bet it's a setup, Az. Catwoman doesn't steal anymore and if it looks otherwise, what do you want to bet she's staging it to trick us into accusing her. _

**_She mocks us? _**

_She mocks us whenever she sees us, Az. But this is a new low. Boy oh boy, I thought we reached an understanding last time. But to do something like this just to trick us? Look out, she's coming this way! _

"Halt! Cat-Thief, I charge you in the name of St. Dumas to state your business in this place!"

_WHAT ARE YOU DOING!_

_**I had no choice but to confront her once she had seen us, Mortal.**_

_Yeah but 'charge you in the name of Dumas' where'd THAT come from? You haven't spouted like that since—y'know the days back in the other guy's cape. _

_**There are aspects of my performance that will always be dictated by the System, Mortal.**_

_Whoa, look at that, now she's hissing. Oh you have really done it now, Az. Az? Az? HEY, AZRAEL! She's getting away, AZ, focus already, gal in the catsuit is running away. Shouldn't we— _

_**Silence, Mortal. You were correct. Her purpose here tonight was only to mock us.**_

_HUH? Az, what gives? _

_**That was not the Feline we encountered previously. It was not the woman Selina Kyle who lives at Wayne Manor. That was an imposter.**_

_I am so confused. _

_**It was an imposter. You were correct. She seeks to mock us. She would trick us into making ourselves ridiculous before Batman. Your pride would be so damaged we would be forced to depart this city—**_

_My pride? Wait just a darn minute— _

_**An Azrael cares not for the goodwill of others, Mortal. I care not if we stay in this city without the good opinion of its protector or his agents.**_

_I still don't see why you let her get away – ESPECIALLY if you know it's a copycat? _

_**You are so eager to remind me of our first encounter with the Feline, Mortal. Need I remind you that the accusation about the nerve gas was but the least of our offenses by her reckoning. She saw at once we were not the Batman she knew. She calls us 'the imposter' to this day. **_

_She calls us 'Pheromones'. Imposter would actually be an improvement. _

_**She persists in alluding to that incident at every opportunity. This is but another example. It is exactly as you said. She staged this to trick us into accusing her. She sent this imposter Catwoman to remind us of—**_

_—Of an imposter Bat? I don't think so, Az. When we thought it was Selina Kyle, yeah, a setup seemed like the most logical explanation, because Selina's Catwoman doesn't steal anymore. But if it's not her, then— Az, Az you're not listening to me. Az, where are we going? Az! Az you've got the wrong idea here. _

_**Enough prattle on matters you know nothing of, Mortal. Tell me again about these Gotham Knights and their quest to subdue the Meteors of Metropolis.**_

Jean Paul sighed, knowing from long, hard experience it was impossible to reason with an angel once he'd made up his mind— no matter how wrong he might be.

Once the vigilante had left, the room remained still for a long moment… then a figure emerged from the shadows. The outline of a man took on a greenish tint as it moved into the glow near the window. Edward Nigma looked quizzically at the stand where the sleek figure had fiddled with the base of the diamond display, then left without her prize. His eyes moved carefully to the spot where she came forward to hiss at Azrael. "Barney Fife," Nigma mouthed, his brow knit in some arduous calculations. Then his eyes flickered to the spot where Azrael had stood like a statue all that time – watching the cat – getting hissed at – then standing some more after she left. Just stood there like a dolt, and then he left. Nigma's eyes turned slowly to the door, following the path where Azrael had exited.

"Well now, REVENGE HAS THY NIGHT, CAT"

* * *

...to be continued...


	4. Triptych

**Strange Bedfellows  
** _Chapter 4: Triptych_

* * *

**Wayne Manor, Morning.  
**Bruce sat sketching out plans for the new Zogger, brow knit into a crinkled triangle of intense concentration, as Alfred looked on, wondering what was really going on…

**Iceberg Lounge, Morning.  
**Edward Nigma sat with the Times crossword, a page of anagrams, and a legal pad of new riddles, brow knit into a crinkled triangle of intense concentration, as Sly and Oswald looked on, wondering what was really going on…

**Murray Hill Apartments, 4C, Morning.  
**Azrael sat sketching a new armor design, his brow knit into a crinkled triangle of intense concentration, as Jean Paul looked on, knowing only too well what was really going on and wondering what, if anything, could be done to stop it…

_Don't do this, Az. I know you're not a touchy-feely talk-it-out kind of guy, but it would be better than this! Az – Az I know you can hear me. Put the pencils down, Az. Put the pencils DOWN and listen to me for a blessed minute will ya. You do this every time there's a setback. You tune me out and go running into the System and butching up the armor. Azrael, listen to me, it has never once helped. Talk to me, damnit!_

* * *

**Iceberg Lounge…  
**After a minute's whispered conversation, Oswald pushed Sly forward. The bartender approached Nigma cautiously, stopping each time the latter grumbled… "Eight letters, a nutty liquor" …or tore a page from the legal pad, grinding it into a ball, and setting it neatly into a small paperball pyramid at his elbow.

"What is it, Sly?" Nigma asked without looking up once the bartender came into range.

"Um… I was just wondering, uh, if you'd like some coffee or anything, Mr. Nigma. You've been at it, whatever it is you're doing there, since dawn."

"A-ma-retto- a nutty liquor –so that's tailfeather number six going down. I have been at it since before dawn, Sly, as you and the bird ogling me from the doorway -- yes I see you Oswald, speaking of tail feathers -- well know, I have been at it since I got in last night, I have not slept, and I certainly have no need for more (Eight-letter word for stimulant) caffeine, as the length of this sentence will attest." He looked up and smiled a bright smile, pleased with his cleverness. "But you should make a pot for yourself and Ozzy. Get wired, Sly, my good man, I think you'll find after a cup or two, you'll be able to keep up with my witty eight-letter word for repartee, begins with a b, badinage."

* * *

**Wayne Manor…  
**"Alfred," Bruce asked crisply as the butler began dusting the sideboard, "Have you noted anything… peculiar… about Selina lately?"

"Peculiar? No indeed, sir."

"Nothing unusual at all? She seems her usual self to you?"

"Yes, sir. Very much so. Might I inquire what in particular you—"

"Oh it's nothing."

"Very good, sir."

Alfred turned to leave, but Bruce went on speaking.

"She's just – in a really good mood all of a sudden, that's all."

"Surely that isn't cause for alarm, sir."

"No, I guess not. It's odd though."

* * *

**Murray Hill Apartments, 4c  
**A normal man, agitated as Jean Paul was becoming, would have felt tension coiling in the muscles of his shoulders and neck. He might have stretched, stood, or even paced to ease the physical manifestation of his fevered thoughts. But with the Azrael personality in control of the body they shared, he could do nothing but coexist with his anxiety as it twisted into tighter and tighter spirals of options that were no options.

Azrael was having an absolute meltdown.

Catwoman was always a bit of a raw nerve – for the both of them but more so for the Azrael side. In their time in the Batman's mantel, she was the only one that had truly beaten him. The reaction then wasn't good. That period was painful and confusing for Jean Paul to remember, all the more so because he hadn't learned to distinguish Azrael from his own self. He would never be entirely sure what had happened, what incident ignited what response from what part of his personality. But he knew the combination of the Mantel and the System proved disastrous, and he knew he was unable to stop it.

Jean Paul couldn't let it happen again. Azrael was in trouble. The wild theory Jean Paul himself suggested, that Selina Kyle was setting them up, set off some kind of weird fixation when Azrael realized it wasn't Selina in the catsuit. Now he was channeling the System like mad, redesigning the armor over and over. Jean Paul couldn't let it happen again… but where could he go?

To go to Bruce with this was unthinkable. Azrael – losing it – again – and because of Catwoman?

Oracle was a possibility – they had a good relationship once - but Oracle had married Dick Grayson. That was worse than going to Bruce.

Robin and Batgirl were children.

There had to be someone. There had to.

* * *

**Wayne Manor…**  
Bruce merely stared at the arrow on his sketch indicating the tiny roving arm that would deliver a half-dozen rapid blows to the midsection. In his mind he almost felt the blows, so lost was he in memory of a hundred late-night Zogger sessions. Sessions after patrol, after an encounter with a maddening cat, sessions meant to clear his mind of the echoes.

"That's far enough, Catwoman." "It's never far enough, Dark Knight."

No rooftop encounter had ever haunted him like her behavior at breakfast. Alfred must have brought in the tray while Bruce was in the shower. He had come out of the bathroom to find Selina, lying on her stomach on the bed, reading the newspaper and laughing like a schoolgirl.

"Guess what," she announced, flopping over onto her back to face him, looking up with a tickled smile, "I have cat-powers." And then peals of laughter.

"You have woman-powers," he noted voice dipping into Batman's gravel, "And that's quite enough trouble as it is."

"Woof," she said, rolling back onto her stomach. She bent her knees up and crossed the ankles, letting the legs bob back and forth as she read, the muscles of the calves gently tensing and releasing on each move.

Bruce grunted, feeling she'd made his point for him. He picked up the silver pot from the tray, poured his coffee, and picked up his own newspaper, still neatly folded in its little pocket in the side of the breakfast tray… The second paper was a new phenomenon. Alfred had been quick to add a second cup to the tray as soon as Selina started sleeping over. After she moved in, the pastries began appearing. Not every day, but often – a chocolate croissant or a raspberry scone. And now, a second newspaper.

Bruce brought the coffee to his lips and one of those strange chains of sense memories reminded him of another morning, another cup of coffee, another newspaper—a box labeled Stage Views right beneath the fold:  
**CATWOMAN PURRS**  
_ They say God writes lousy theatre. They haven't been to off-Broadway's Hijinx Playhouse lately, where Selina Kyle, purporting to be one of Gotham's most mysterious costumed nightcrawlers, The Catwoman, is currently starring in a one-woman show…_  
Bruce vividly remembered the words burning off the page into his brain, a swallow of coffee gone awry, a gurgling cough, and then a frantic attempt to mop the hot liquid off the page, read the soggy words beneath, wave off Alfred, and at the same time go on breathing despite the lingering sting of snorted coffee and the state of shock congealing in his lungs.

He turned back towards the bed as if turning from that past shock into the present, and the puzzle of Selina – that same Selina from the stage of the Hijinx Playhouse – the same Selina who mounted Cat-Tales to answer an insult from that newspaper – lying on his bed – actually – _ laughing?_ – at the Post's latest outrage.

"…'chosen of a cat-god', oh my dear lord, somebody at the Post is off his medication again. That's why I can jump from rooftop to rooftop it seems." She looked up at him with a delighted wink, "Only been doing it since I was 23. Don't ask me how you pull it off though."

Bruce said nothing.

"How can anybody be so wrong in so many ways. You've really got to wonder, don't you?" she laughed merrily, popping a bite of scone into her mouth. "I'll bet you Blake has kittens when he sees this."

Where was the indignation? Where was the rage? Where was the litany of imaginative organ removal techniques involving cat-claws?

* * *

**Iceberg Lounge…  
**"Where'd he go?" Oswald asked, looking around the bar where Ed Nigma had been loitering since moving into the Iceberg.

"Out," Sly told him, "Said there's no way he can continue like this."

"KWAK-KWAK-KWAK! There's gratitude for you, after I let him stay in my bar for a mere pittance of rent, and the most trifling percentage of his earnings whilst he was our guest."

"I don't think he meant us, Mr. Cobblepot. He left this note."

Sly held out a folded Iceberg Lounge napkin stained with a brown mug-sized ring and smelling strongly of stale coffee. Oswald opened it, read the words scrawled inside, then reread them.

_Gang aft No Way! Bitch!  
"The best-laid schemes o' Mice and Men gang aft a-gley,  
An' lea'e us nought but grief and pain for promised joy."  
The best-laid plans are my plans, you copycat bitch.  
Gang Aft Aglay? I'll show you Gang Aft Aglay.  
__No goddamn copycat is going to track litter over my timetable. _

"This isn't a riddle," Oswald noted, "it's a rant."

Sly said nothing at first but merely went on polishing the bar with his trademark calm. Oswald watched this behavior, remembering those first weeks when he'd noticed the bartender's unflappability in the face of rogue excesses.

"Well, kwak-kwak, back to normal around here anyway."

"Yes sir, Mr. Cobblepot," Sly smiled.

"Make sure you add the cost of that table onto Blake's tab."

"Already done, Mr. Cobblepot."

* * *

**Beneath Wayne Manor…**  
Bruce fired up the Batcave systems that monitored the security cameras positioned throughout Wayne Manor. The ones in Selina's suite were out again. It had become a running game between them: She disconnected them, he restored them; she rerouted them to show the interior of Alfred's pantry, he set them back; she rigged them to play a loop of 'Catvid-legs'… he let that one stand for a day, then switched it back.

On a hunch, he punched up the feed from the camera in the morning room. She was there. Bruce sat back in his chair, watching the image with a curious mix of satisfaction and unease. Selina was sitting at the desk, sipping coffee and reading the morning mail from the look of it… and unless there was some kind of short in the system, she was humming… Rodgers & Hammerstein?… When she first moved in, she always used the little office she'd set up in her own suite. Lately she'd begun using the morning room more often…

Maybe it was that simple.

They'd grown much closer since the first time Talia tried inserting herself into their lives. Selina was more secure in their relationship now; more secure in the life they were building together. So Talia's power was diminished. She was no longer a threat; she was, at most, an annoyance.

It was – it _should have been _good news. But Bruce felt a queasy inclination to gulp all the same and his mind raced to find the reason… Selina was reading her mail in the morning room, letting go of those distinctions she insisted on so adamantly when she first moved in. She was a cat; she would always be independent. But she was growing beyond that aggressive, almost paranoid, guarding of her independence. She was beginning to see that a life with him didn't threaten it. She was…

She was… She was showing Jean Paul Valley into the morning room?

* * *

**10 blocks north of the Iceberg Lounge…  
**Nigma left the Gotham Public Library with as energetic a gait as he'd entered an hour earlier. But where anger and frustration spurred him on earlier, he moved now with a renewed determination to get the job done. A mere forty minutes in the computer lab and he'd found the information he needed.

He hailed a cab and named an address. As the taxi pulled into traffic, he thought through the possible scenarios. He had his riddles laid out, there was a sequence and Catwoman was to be #2 in that sequence. He had laid the foundations in that first riddle, already sent to Batman. Croc was first, but Catwoman was mentioned. Catwoman was the key to crime #2. Catwoman HAD to be crime #2 if his clue was to be fair. Now all he had to do was send the code and it would be up to Batman to find the correct Catwoman article in the Post to learn the target: Canary.

He simply could not have a fake Catwoman running around Gotham sniffing around his cat-prize – with Barney Fife trailing after her no less.

No, he had to put a stop to this copycat nonsense. He wasn't sure how yet, but given his intellect and hers, he was certain there would be no difficulty.

* * *

**Wayne Manor…**  
Jean Paul would never feel really _comfortable_ talking to Selina Kyle, but the Azrael situation was too dangerous and too important to let butterflies stop him. He had eliminated the entire Bat-family as potential confidants. The whole AzBat history made the subject too delicate. Selina might hate him still for daring to take Bruce's place, and she wouldn't take pains to hide it. But even her pointed dislike he could endure more than facing Bruce with the news that Azrael might be coming unhinged again.

That was his theory at least, until he reached the morning room. Jean Paul had told Azrael that he wanted to see Alfred. It was plausible enough, it got him to the door of Wayne Manor, and he'd blurted out his request to see Selina the moment Alfred Pennyworth opened the door. Azrael began ranting and Jean Paul tuned him out as resolutely as the vigilante often did to him.

_I didn't used to be so good at this, Az, _he thought before shutting that door in his mind. _But after all those weeks in Rumania and Berlin I think I can just about get through a ten minute conversation with Selina without your— oh. _

Jean Paul felt all his determination unravel when he reached the morning room and Alfred, who had been walking in front of him, stepped to the side. Jean Paul found himself looking through the open space formerly occupied by Alfred's back, through the doorway at Selina, seated at the desk. She was humming something; she looked… quite _ lovely_ in that split second looking up, before recognizing her visitor. And then… disgust. Her face didn't exactly "fall" but the disappointment was clear enough. "Oh it's you" was never said aloud, but Jean Paul heard it just as clearly.

Jean Paul's resolve faltered – and Azrael began screaming in his mind.

**_—herself into the Batman's life, robbing us of a powerful ally in this matter, and perhaps the one best equipped to handle her, but that you must also place yourself under yoke of her—_**

"Um, really sorry to bother you," Jean Paul managed, sounding whiny even to his own ears. "I hope it's not too bad a time?"

"No of course not," Selina answered with all the warmth of a tax attorney, "Have a seat. Can Alfred bring you anythingnogood. Well then what do you want?"

Jean Paul steeled himself and explained, as briefly as he could, that he wanted her help. Azrael – the Azrael personality that is – Yes he supposed he was worse than even Bruce about referring to his crimefighting persona as a separate entity – but it really was very different from the usual vigilante alter-ego situation, not that he was pretending to be an expert about superheroes –

She looked so disapproving; he kept stumbling and qualifying his remarks, taking strange verbal detours. Before long he was explaining how Azrael was an artificial personality programmed into him by the Order of St. Dumas… when he realized she didn't care.

"It's just that, you have a very profound effect on Azrael… Ma'am. He's acting wonky again and I really don't know what to do. I figured if anybody could talk him down it'd be you."

* * *

**Beneath Wayne Manor…**  
The words "Azrael" and "over the edge" were all Bruce needed to hear. Without bothering to close down the console he was on his way out of the cave, up to the morning room to get some answers.

* * *

**Wayne Manor…**  
"Let me get this straight," Selina said crisply. "Your… 'Azzier half' is having an episode – and you want me to – do what exactly? Sit him down for milk and cookies?"

There was no answer. It seemed like the poor ass couldn't even look up at her. Selina realized that, like it or not, she needed a different approach.

"Look… Jean Paul," without realizing it she had infused the name with a slightly French pronunciation and it startled him into looking up at her. His mouth opened and the words began pouring out in a stream…

"I know you didn't set us up, Catwoman. I know that! I knew as soon as he said it wasn't you in the catsuit. As soon as we saw it was a fake Catwoman, then it all made sense! But he won't see that. He's got this _idée fixe_ about you now. He thinks you set up the whole thing to humiliate him because of the time it was him in the batsuit and I know you're going to hate me now for even bringing that up but—"

"Hang on," Selina ordered. Jean Paul stopped, less because of the verbal cut-off and more because Selina Kyle's hand had appeared –firmly- on top of his. It wasn't a slap or anything, but it was physical, it was her hand, it was there on his thumb and forefinger, touching him, and it punctuated the order to stop talking with force of a thousand _Halt in the name of St. Dumas_.

"A _fake_ Catwoman?" Selina asked pointedly.

"Yes, Ma'am."

"Don't call me Ma'am. A fake Catwoman?"

He nodded.

"You mean like goggles and cat-powers from the Gotham Post?"

"No, more like you. Purple and, and stealing jewels – except with a tail."

"A _ tail!_"

"And… not as pretty."

Selina glared a glare of absolute contempt. And Jean Paul thought of a different detail to have noticed.

"And not so good at the stealing, either. She didn't disable the cameras or anything."

Selina flexed her fingers and Jean Paul gulped. The gesture was most eloquent, even though there were no claws there: something needed to be shredded. Preferably something that would scream.

"I, I jus'thought," he stammered – when Bruce burst into the room, seized his collar, pulled him from the chair and slammed him against the wall.

"What happened? How many hurt? What triggered it? What part of town? Who was there? Who else knows?"

"HEY!" Selina cut in, "Ex_cuse_ me, I think this is _my_ meeting and if anybody is going to claw some answers out of the pheromonially-challenged mouse it's going to be me. So take a number." She turned to Jean Paul without breaking for air and started her own barrage of questions: "Where was this fake Catwoman? What was she after? How did she go about breaking in? Why didn't she disable the cameras? What did she say? How did she fight—"

"Kitten," Bruce started to say, still clenching Jean Paul's shirt in his fist, "Do you mind, this is import— WAITAMINUTE – _a fake Catwoman_!?"

"Ye-es—" Selina answered in a mocking sing-song that erased all doubt that the good mood of the morning was a distant memory. As she went on, Bruce found her tone disconcertingly familiar. It harkened back to the old days on rooftops, telling Batman to back off. "—was _working on that_ before you came _barging in_, so barge the hell out so I can get on with it!"

"I really do think she can be more help," Jean Paul added meekly. "Maybe work together, with Az I mean, on finding this imposter. If we can just convince him Catwoman, real Catwoman I mean, _Selina_ isn't involved, I think he'll have to realize you have a right to help take down the copycat. Right?"

Bruce looked from one to the other. "I want a report every fifteen minutes," he barked finally, turning to go. Then he stopped and turned back.

Of course.

His eyes met Selina's.

"Talia was bound to try something," he said flatly. "This is it."

"I don't understand," Jean Paul said, "Talia Head? Why would she want to send Az into a death spiral?"

"This started off such a good day," Selina complained. "I had cat-powers."

* * *

...to be continued...


	5. Eureka?

**Strange Bedfellows  
** _Chapter 5: Eureka?_

* * *

Nobody really appreciated Talia Head's unique talents as much as Talia herself. Consider her transformation into the kind of independent single woman her Beloved required. Although raised in the court of Ra's al Ghul with a thousand minions to do her bidding, she had embraced the democratic practices of Beloved's country. She had no handmaid to collect her worn clothing and place it into the laundry bag supplied by the hotel, so she did it herself. She filled out the instruction card for the laundry service and placed the bag outside the door with her own hand. She called the concierge herself and made her own appointments with the hotel salon for a set and manicure.

Truly she was the living embodiment of liberated womanhood.

Another sort of woman, weak and uncertain of her abilities, might be discouraged at the setback. Talia had been forced to leave the diamond exchange before she was ready because of that wretched Azrael. At least there were the security tapes of Catwoman breaking in, so this time there could be no doubt of the perpetrator. But there had been no mauling of the guards with the claws of a hellcat as she had intended to raise Beloved's ire with the spilling of blood. It was vexing to think she would have to don that horrid cat costume again. But her Beloved must be made to see what kind of—

_Meaiwoww…_

Talia stopped, keycard in hand, at the door to her hotel room.

_Meaiwoww…_

The noise coming from the other side of the door was…

_Meaiwoww…_

Too disgusting! Someone was playing games. Someone clearly had no idea who they were dealing with. To antagonize the Demon Head's daughter! Talia opened the door, eyes burning with fury, to see—

_Meaiwoww… _

"Riddle me this, Pet!" A curious man with thinning hair was seated comfortably in her room before a room service cart. On top of the cart, a revolting feline _thing_ was standing around several empty bowls; on the shelf below, there were two covered dishes.

"If a cat has been fed and you give it more food, it doesn't much care." The man was undoubtedly The Riddler, another of the criminal filth for which her Beloved remained in this wretched city instead of taking his place at her side. Riddler reached down to the lower shelf as he spoke and placed one of the covered dishes before the cat. He lifted the lid to reveal a small bowl of minced meat, which the cat sniffed at… and then looked up at him with indifference.

"If on the other hand, some mousy wannabe were to come along and pull on kitty's tail…" Riddler reached down to the second dish, and placed it before the cat. In one move he lifted the lid with his left hand while pinching the cat's hindquarters with the right. A small lizard sat on the plate, and the cat promptly hissed, lunged, and bit its head off. "Good kitty," Riddler remarked, picking the cat up and stroking its head.

"That's not much of a riddle," Talia noted coldly.

"No, it's not," he conceded. "Neither is what's going to happen to you when the real Catwoman finds out what you're up to. What are you up to, by the way?"

"Calling hotel security," Talia announced grandly, "And having you thrown out."

"Sit down, you stupid snatch," Riddler hissed, as Talia lifted the phone from its receiver to hear no dialtone. "Who do you think you're dealing with? Or don't you think at all?"

Talia started to fume and rummage for her cel phone.

"SIT DOWN!" Riddler bellowed. "Please," he added sweetly. "We need to talk. _I_ am going to talk at any rate. If you are here, then I will talk to you and you will listen. If you are not here, I will call Selina and I assure you _she_ will listen to what I have to say — and then she will shred you into so much…" he pointed to the headless lizard carcass on the plate.

Talia sat. She would have her revenge on this vermin, but for now she sat. In her father's court, she had learned early there were times a woman could do no more than sit and listen… sit and listen and wait for her opportunity…

"Good," Riddler declared. "Now then, I don't know what your problem is or why you're running around town in a catsuit… For that matter I don't know why you used a LexCorp card to reserve this room. That was downright stupid, Lady. Makes you real easy to find and you can't even use it to pay your bill now that you tanked the company. But I digress."

He patted the cat on the head and sat it down. It promptly ran across the room and started chewing the handle of Talia's handbag.

Talia seethed. One of the criminal vermin that kept her Beloved from her went on speaking and a filthy cat was chewing on her purse.

"Like I was saying, I don't know why you want to run around town in a catsuit. And I don't care – except that you picked a bad time. You're messing with my timetable, Sweetie, and that's got to stop. So either knock it off for the next, say, two months, or else take it out of town. If you go with the latter and leave town, you can take Barney Fife with you. That numbskull Azrael does not figure into my plan. When I challenge the Bat it is a clash of Titans! And I don't need any inferior intellects running around the chessboard. Got it?"

A cat was chewing on her purse and the horrid criminal vermin was giving her an ultimatum?

"I do not deign to take orders from peasants such as you, Little Man," Talia said coldly.

"Oh this isn't an order, Pet," Riddler answered sweetly, "it's a _threat_. Knock it off, or I'll tell Selina and then she'll knock something off – probably something you'd rather stay attached to. Like your head."

The cat discovered a buckle on her purse and began pulling at it.

"'Cause I gotta say, cute as you looked in the catsuit, I don't think you got the nine-lives thing in you."

"An Al Ghul lives a thousand lives," Talia answered absently, preoccupied for a moment with the soft determined growls coming from the cat as each new tug at the buckle inched her 12,000 Birkin bag along the floor.

Riddler laughed. "'A thousand lives' eh, well isn't that special. You'd get on real well Tom Blake, y'know that, the Catman. Maybe that's what you've got in mind playing dress up with the catsuit, hm? Reowrl. You know what they say: 'Once you go cat, you never go back.' Heh, heh, just ask Bruce Wayne…"

The mention of Beloved's name on the vermin's lips added a whole new level to Talia's torment and for the moment her attention recoiled back again, away from the cat and back to the Riddler.

"…lucky guy that Wayne, although what the attraction could be on her side is quite the braintease. The man is an absolute idiot!"

"HE IS NOT AN IDIOT!" Talia exploded, pushed beyond the limits of human endurance. "He is genius made manifest! A repugnant riddling menace like you is not fit to polish his shoes!"

Riddler was taken aback. It wasn't, if the truth were known, the first time he'd gone a little far with the taunting and wound up getting screamed at. It was such an effort dealing with the dumber sorts like this Talia Head. He had to hold back all his anagrams and word games or he wouldn't be understood. It was a strain, and he had to be excused for taking a few pot shots when – in addition to merely _being_ stupid – his listeners insisted on making a _spectacle_ of their ignorance.

"…Nor is that diseased cat-slut fit to stand at his side…"

But really, she was carrying on like an absolute Arkham case.

"…to sit at the head of his table…"

Nigma had to wonder if they were talking about the same guy.

"…travel with him to the great capitals of the world…"

Talia certainly wasn't the sharpest pin in the cushion, but nobody could be _so _stupid that they thought Bruce Wayne was _smart_ by comparison.

"…unworthy… unfit… undeserving…"

It was almost like she was confusing Wayne with— Oh let's not even go there.

Although

Hm.

Hm.

Hm.

and it would explain the…

and the…

and of course Catwoman.

Whoa.

"…in his box at the opera…"

Now that was a conundrum.

"…photographed arriving on his arm at all the great occasions…"

That was a conundrum worth the conundring.

"…will never truly have him…"

Or whatever it is you do with conundra.

* * *

Dick retired to the bedroom as soon as it became obvious he was a riddle-widower for the day. Barbara was analyzing old Post articles on every rogue included in the packet of photos sent with the Croc riddle. As single-minded as Bruce could be with a new riddle clue, he had always included Dick in the process. Barbara wasn't so generous. She might still be smarting from her exclusion the other night. Dick had been included in that, solving the riddle with Bruce, so this was her show.

It didn't really matter. Dick had no desire to be petty. He was just… bored. The idea of lying around the house like a lazy-male caricature did have a certain appeal. He was entitled after all; he worked hard. Tonight Nightwing was going to suit up and work hard again. Unlike Bruce, he was going to allow himself some downtime. A day off. Why not? If Barbara wanted to spin her wheels all day like a compulsive workaholic, let her. He would rest up for the night ahead.

Unlike Bruce. It was with that happy thought that Dick turned on the television. It had been a long time since he'd had the chance to see _The Young and the Restless_.

* * *

Edward Nigma walked in a brisk figure eight around the lobby of Talia's hotel, across the street into Robinson Park, around the batting cages, and back across the street and into the lobby.

He had to calm himself. CMON DU RUN, he thought, reflexively generating anagrams for Conundrum. CORN MUD NU… MUD ROC NUN… Batman. MBA TAN… NAB TAM… BAT MAN… oh. Try a different word, something more challenging. Bruce Wayne…—Idiot. The man was an idiot. It never made sense, him and Catty. A man like that and a hot babe like Selina. It _never_ made any sense. The brain is the ultimate sex organ, after all. The sexiest men were smart. It was only the dullards that needed the thick hair and six-pack abs… YARN CUB WEE… ANY CUBER WE…

After several minutes of this soothing mental tonic, he found himself back in the park. He stopped his pacing and sat on a bench.

He had a schedule. He had a complete crime spree, his cleverest ever, mapped out. He couldn't just set it aside. He had already sent Batman the first clues! It was begun. He couldn't just abandon the scheme at this point. He had already sent the Catwoman clue intertwined with Croc's. How could he simply ignore that? How?!

But— But if— If if if.

If if.

If it were true…

It might be difficult for him to set aside the precedent of riddling clues to announce his next crime. But it would be IMPOSSIBLE to set aside this new possibility and pursue his original scheme as if nothing had happened.

What if Bruce Wayne was Batman?

He had to pursue this question. It was too tantalizing a possibility. The Riddle of the Sphinx was nothing to it. Batman's identity! The Post crime spree would have to wait. The Catwoman crime would have to be postponed. Yes. No. Yes! What was he Two-Face? Did he have to flip a coin? No, He was the Riddler! And this was the Riddle of the Ages! And the solution beckoned to him! He would not turn his back on it!

So… How to proceed?

He needed a clue.

It would be folly to build any plan on so shaky a foundation. He had only wild speculation at this point. Only the stupidest fool would construct any theories on the chance words of an agitated hysteric. He needed more pieces of the puzzle.

He looked up at the hotel…

It wasn't an attractive prospect, but he did know one certain source of information. She who had supplied that first puzzle piece…

It wouldn't be an easy task considering how he'd begun with her. But Talia Head was not a smart woman; it could probably be managed. He would go back and apologize to begin with… collect his cat, tell her he liked her spunk… And he would get a room at the hotel, on her floor if it could be managed. The proximity would be useful; it would help convince her of his interest. – And it was certainly more comfortable than the Iceberg basement.

* * *

Dick turned off the television and went to rejoin Barbara in the living room.

"Soaps have changed," he announced.

"Did you say something, Dickie?" she asked absently, engrossed in a Post article about a psychic girl and her pet, the giant four-armed gorilla.

"The soap operas, _Young and the Restless, General Hospital_. I haven't watched since college. They've gotten really odd."

"Oh?" Barbara pretended to listen while wondering to herself why psychic girl and her gorilla were fighting vampires. "How's that?"

"Our heroine, the all-around perfect good girl goes to a doctor to try and help— somebody, I dunno, old friend-enemy-something, you can never tell on soaps —who's been kidnapped, 'experimented' on, all kinds of microbots/cybernetic stuff attached to her. With me so far?"

"Dickie, if somebody was psychic enough to realize a gorilla was sentient, don't you think they should be able to tell if they're getting mixed up in cult of ancient vampires?"

"And it turns out the doctor she's going to for help is the business partner/college friend/roommate of the woman who's been trying to wreck her public image because she's so all-around perfect good-girl how can ordinary women compete with—_VAMPIRES_?!"

"That's what it says, cult of ancient vampires… What were you saying?"

"Never mind."

* * *

On her prior visits to Gotham, Talia's entrance into Chinatown would have been conspicuous. Even uptown Gothamites took the subway to the Canal Street station. Tourists sometimes took taxis, but more often arrived by the dozen on double-decker buses. A white stretch-limo from one of the uptown hotels, too wide and unwieldy to turn onto the back streets, that would be noticed. Particularly when it stopped, choking off traffic, and a chauffer emerged to open the door for a haughty woman in a tailored white suit.

It was lucky the "ghetto fabulous" trend had made designer knockoffs all the rage with the beautiful people. It was assumed that Talia was just another Madison Avenue socialite come in search of obvious fakes. As she marched crisply along the streets too narrow for her limo to travel, she was assailed with whispers of "LV colors – Miss, you want LV colors? Prada? Kate Spade? Burberry?"

She ignored these, but found the food carts and cooking stands harder to blot out. The dirty smells of this horrible city were a positive assault on the sensibilities of any refined being. Once Beloved came to his senses and took his place at her side, their first order of business really must be to move out of this rotten and rotting city.

Talia bypassed these narrow stalls, past padlocked gratings and murky basement stairs, until she found the address she sought. At the curio shop, she slapped In'Qel for raising his eyes in her presence, erasing in a second the softening his eight months in Bludhaven and four weeks in Gotham had brought about. He begged esteemed master Gr'oriBr'di to forgive the intrusion that his most unworthy servant might announce the arrival of the Great One's Daughter, Talia al Ghul.

Greg was appalled at his star pupil's regression into a groveling toady, and his concern for the henchman prevented his giving Talia his full attention for the first minutes of her visit.

"I have heard promising reports of you, Gr'oriBr'di of Gotham," she declared. "Ulstarn speaks of his removal from this post in terms that leave no question of your cunning and brutality. Since that time, so it reaches my ears, you have moved to take over Oswald Cobblepot's operation as well. This speaks well of your ambition as well as your guile."

"Oh I really wouldn't say I took over anythin—"

"Of course not," Talia interrupted, "I _quite_ understand." Too dignified to actually wink, she merely gave a twitchy side nod to indicate her shrewd appreciation of his unspoken tactic.

Talia was very pleased with what she saw in Greg Brady. He was truly everything Ulstarn had said: the innocence with which he denied plotting against Cobblepot, it would fool anyone. He had the requisite power, for he commanded her father's minions… He certainly didn't have a fortune on the scale of a Lex Luthor, or even King Snake… but he had cunning and ambition. With cunning, ambition, and power, the fortune would be his soon enough. Yes, he would do very nicely. If Beloved did not soon wake to his destiny, then this Gr'oriBr'di would make a suitable protector in the interim.

"Um— Well, what can I do for you, Miss Head?"

And the vermin Edward Nigma's advances had given her the perfect means to approach him.

"Al Ghul. Now that I have completed my mission destroying LexCorp, I have taken back the name with which I was born, Talia al Ghul."

"Your _ mission_ destroying LexCorp?" Greg asked. "Ohhh, yes of course." He gave the same sideways twitch-nod she gave earlier. "I _quite_ understand," he assured her. "Well then, Miss al Ghul, what can I do for—"

"I have need of an assassin. Your best. I wish Edward Nigma dispatched without delay."

* * *

...to be continued...


	6. Losing him

**Strange Bedfellows  
** _Chapter 6: Losing Him_

* * *

There's a reason cats work alone. You know why? Because people are annoying.

Consider Pheromones over there.

He had the gall to call himself Batman. _He took Bruce's place_ – He _LIVED_ in this house, he came down to this cave, he had the unmitigated gall to go into the vault and put on that cape –_Bruce's_ cape and cowl and then go out into city calling himself Batman. He makes my skin crawl. I can barely stand to be in the same room with him and now I was supposed to work with the miserable shit.

After the morning room we had gone down to the cave. First we watched the "HelmetCam" record of Azrael's encounter with the faux Catwoman. Then… we watched it again. Oracle had already accessed the security videos from the Parker Exchange, so now we sat there watching _catvid-who-does-she-think-she's-fooling_ for the fifth time. Bruce was lurking not far away, pretending to work on Zogger. I got the vibe he wanted to keep an eye on us – on me – which was frankly a little insulting. It's not like I was going to claw Azrael into 200 pounds of cat kibble – not in the Batcave – Alfred would have to clean it up.

"VOX Control. VidFeed: Parker Exchange. Halt and replay from time index 23:15."

Six times. We were going to watch it a _sixth_ time.

"Vidfeed. Play at quarter speed until time index 23:19."

He used that voice too. The deep one he thinks sounds like Batman. Fooled a lot of them with that. He fooled Two-Face, fooled Gordon; he even fooled Tim. But he never fooled me.

"Freeze, enlarge quadrant C3, playback at 1/8th speed."

"Look," I told him frankly, "We've watched this independent film from Nepal's most neurotic auteur six times now. There's nothing more to see as far as I'm concerned. _It's the spawn_."

He looked at the tape then at me, then at the tape, and then at me.

"The… spawn," he said finally.

"Talia al Ghul-Head-whatever," I explained, "the demonspawn."

"I know who you meant," he declared.

How I hate that voice.

I was having a really good day too. The thing with Bruce's scars, all of them coming back that way after the Berserker episode, seeing him… seeing him _hurt_ like that, it put a lot of the nonsense into perspective. I love him. We're good together. We're happy. What did it really matter if a few silly people jumped to some silly conclusions about us? If Clark Kent tried to play matchmaker? If we even decided to… Anyway, it was a good day. And then _he_ showed up. Jean Paul Valley, Azrael, the walking, talking reminder of … losingBruce.

Jean Paul says Azrael has an _idée fixe_ about me.

Well Pheromones, it's mutual.

"She tried to frame me once before," I said, filling him in on the history. "But there was no dressing up that time. She just had some cat-crimes committed in Gotham. She must have figured the thefts themselves would set Bruce off or something… turn him against me. The DEMON crowd isn't big with the new ideas. She's recycling what she's done before, just like her old man."

He nodded.

"I begin to think your brazen to be true, Catwoman. I had thought you the instigator behind this new villain's appearance, but I see now you are innocent."

"Be still my beating heart," I growled quietly.

"An innocent, unjustly slandered," he kept going.

"Um, yeah, good. Glad we got that cleared up."

"By a petty, covetous woman, made foolish and bitter by her disappointments."

"Ho-kay. Fine. Now about finding her."

"To make slander of a lady's good name is among the vilest of sins."

"Bruce!" I called, feeling I was losing control of the situation, "How do you switch him off?"

"There can be no 'switching off' of Justice, Catwoman. I pledge my sword to the righting of this wrong."

Exactly the wrong thing to say.

"Down boy. No. No righting the wrong. Put down that thought and step slowly away from the hero handbook."

"What's the problem?" Bruce asked too casually, coming over to join us.

I explained. "Pheromones wants to _right my wrong_."

"Oh god," Bruce winced.

"The lady's name is maligned," Azrael announced to the whole cave, as if even the bats hadn't caught on by now.

"I JUST GOT the smell of rosemary oil out of my hair, Bruce. I'm not keen to sit down with any more goddesses that need the lecture notes for Coupling 101."

He was about to say something when an alert sounded at his workstation. He went to check it, and bristled.

"Just a message coming in," he graveled. Batman's voice – the real one. How anybody could be fooled by Pheromones's imitation I will never understand— "I… have to go out. You two settle this between you. Work it out."

I was so stunned I let his rather… _commanding_ tone pass.

I do **_not_** take orders from Batman. And he knows that by now.

I just – temporarily – missed the chance to remind him of that fact because I was so surprised by the whole message/run-off routine. I didn't have a chance to really consider the situation with Bruce, though, because of Azrael. Now that he'd decided I wasn't the bad guy, he was more gung-ho than ever to focus on the case.

"So the Demon Head's daughter is the false Catwoman, and her purpose in this deception is to bring ruin to the true Cat's good name and The Batman's high opinion of you."

Swear to god, that's how he talks. In this particular case it wasn't quite as annoying as usual. He was, despite all the pomposity, strangely direct in his approach:

"Find her. Stop her. Teach her not to attempt such folly again."

I don't believe anyone has ever _taught_ the demonspawn anything, not successfully at any rate, and I told him so. His response was, again, conspicuously not-annoying for Pheromones: The followers of St. Dumas were long-time enemies of the Demon; they had "ways." It sounded colorful. What they used to do to heretics in the good old days. But I hoped it wasn't going to come to hot coals and thumbscrews.

"The Order of St. Dumas keeps up with the times, Good Lady. There have been many advances in technology since such primitive methods were employed. The Order serves St. Dumas with the best means at their disposal."

"Um, Pheromones, just to be clear, are you talking about _torturing_ the demonspawn? -Not that it's necessarily a deal-breaker, I just want to be clear."

"It seldom comes to torture."

So of course I had to go along. I was a little piqued about Bruce and the way he took off, but this had to take precedence. "It seldom comes to torture" and the demonspawn? I somehow didn't think a stern talking to from a guy with a flaming sword was going to do the trick and somebody had to and keep an eye on him.

* * *

In any organization the size of DEMON, there are official rules and mandates that every minion knows, scorched into their very souls by the rigorous indoctrination.

Then there are the other rules and precepts, unofficial, never hinted at in any document or training. They are known just the same by every minion from the lowliest pit-stirrer up to the master's own bodyguard Ubu. One such unofficial precept was that transfer to Gotham City was a punishment.

This had nothing to do with the Great One's great enemy, He whose name must not be spoken. Not directly. It was because of Ulstarn, the lieutenant who had run the vital outpost in the heart of the enemy's stronghold for so many years. Ulstarn's loyalty to Ra's al Ghul was beyond question. He was simply… unpleasant. Monumentally insecure, obsessively suspicious and downright paranoid, it was hell, living hell, to work for such a man. And so slowly, month-by-month, word got around: the glory of challenging the Master's great enemy, He whose name must not be spoken, must be balanced against working for Ulstarn, He who figured any two minions talking together must be plotting against him.

When the higher tiers of DEMON realized this, they put the men's dread of Gotham to good use. There were always minor transgressions for which death was too extreme a penalty. Flogging or starvation, while effective, left a man in poor condition to fight for their liege as a minion should. A transfer to Gotham on the other hand – in some cases the mere _threat_ of a transfer to Gotham – offered a welcome alternative for the DEMON overseer in need of a pickling rod.

When Ulstarn was replaced with Gr'oriBr'di, all of DEMON held its breath. No one knew what kind of man this was. He had not come from their ranks but was chosen personally by the Great One himself, named by the Great One personally and awarded a prestigious second apostrophe!

Not knowing what to expect, Raf'on, son of Raf'Fir and a third generation servant of the Demon's Head, was the first to test if Gotham City would still be a punishment posting under Gr'oriBr'di. He sent a discipline case, Ul'Gei, a rebellious but promising Ajax-second class (who all agreed had a splendid future before him if only he didn't get himself executed before the quarter moon). Like most minions, Ul'Gei did not remain in Gotham for the full term of his posting. He was discovered, like so many are, by He whose name must not be spoken, and returned to the compound in the same cargo crate used to smuggled him into the United States. On Ul'Gei's return, Raf'on watched him closely. The man's spirit was broken. He was silent, he kept his head down, he kept to himself… When other minions returned from Gotham, they were found much the same. Silent. Heads down. One would almost think they were _disappointed_ to be back in the compound. They kept together, as men will do that have endured the same terrible hardships. Whoever Gr'oriBr'di was, he knew how to break a man's spirit. The returned minions whispered of his torments only among themselves — "ice burrows" "the rocket" "jackelope" — and the overseers understood that transfer to Gotham City was still a punishment to be dreaded.

The assassin Il'Nar was one such punishment posting. He had been ordered to kill Clark Kent and he had failed. This was no minor transgression. Failure to complete a sanction was punishable by death: death by a thousand cuts, death by burning, death by drowning, death by hanging, death by half-hanging drawing and quartering, and in less severe cases the condemned would be allowed to take their own life, not honorably by the sword as a warrior, but by the voluntary consumption of strychnine. The sentence was determined by the manner in which the assassin failed. The problem was that, in the case of the Kent sanction, no one could determine what Il'Nar had done wrong. Unable to issue a reprimand let alone pass sentence without some kind of definite findings, Raf'on got the matter off his desk the only way he knew how: he transferred Il'Nar to Gotham City… indefinitely.

Il'Nar knew if he was ever to get back to the compound he must prove himself to Gr'oriBr'di. He would serve Gr'oriBr'di as no overseer had ever been served. This first sanction, Edward Nigma, was a test, and he was thankful to be given it so quickly. He was thankful to Edward Nigma for so foolishly crossing DEMON in whatever way he had done that so demanded his swift removal.

Il'Nar had no difficulty infiltrating the Iceberg basement where he knew Edward Nigma now dwelled. There was only a skeleton staff in the building before the establishment opened for the evening: Cobblepot (well known to all DEMON personnel stationed in Gotham from the dossiers) and Sly the bartender (well known to all DEMON personnel stationed in Gotham for his lessons on the relative merits of Heineken, Beck's, Guinness, and Samuel Adams).

Il'Nar searched the Iceberg basement with quiet efficiency and, finding it empty, positioned himself behind the door, uncoiled his garrote, and waited for Nigma's return.

* * *

It turned out Azrael wasn't completely useless to work on a case with.

Well no, that's not quite true. Azrael _is_ useless. But Jean Paul is right up there with Oracle for the computer wizardry. It only took him a half-hour to find where the demonspawn was staying.

It took _me_ that long to persuade him to wait on the roof.

Official reason: I knew the hotel well - on the park, very upper - it was a regular stop on my prowls when I was working. So it only made sense for me to go in alone.

Unofficial reason: He was a little too sugared up about this 'avenging the lady's name' business, and the idea of ME holding anybody else back from eviscerating the demonspawn was just plain wrong.

The real reason: Helmet-Cam. This guy can _record_ everything that he sees and hears in costume. Those who do not learn the lessons of history will repeat them: I didn't know what was going to happen when I saw Talia again, but whatever it was, I was quite determined it would not wind up on Kazaa via Az-Cam.

So he waited on the roof, and I took my old route onto the concierge floor. I knew the man at the desk. I had chatted him up a few times in the past, strictly to gain information about the place back when I was working. George. He's been concierge here for fifteen years. Got into it "temporarily" for some extra cash on learning his wife was pregnant with twins. By the time she dropped the little rugrats, he had so many contacts in the restaurants, nightclubs, stores and box offices around the city, he couldn't see giving up the tips and going back to data-entry.

George had told me that the hotel guests who stay in these rooms fall into two categories: those that don't really know what a concierge is and don't begin to take advantage of his services – and those that carry on like Pharaoh in a Cecil B. Demille movie. The woman standing at the desk now clearly fell into the latter category:

"…You're quite sure housekeeping gave the carpet a _thorough_ cleaning, not just vacuum, I want the room perfect tonight, absolutely perfect, so if they didn't see to it you'll have to move me to another room…"

Demonspawn in rare form.

"…Now about the dinner reservation, definitely for two, at eight thirty at Sinclair. A good table, mind you, quiet. We'll want privacy, not being gaped at by a lot of common riffraff…"

Head full of plans from the sound of it.

"…Then we'll come back here after dinner. You understand that I'm not to be disturbed all night …"

If this was for one of her Bruce fantasies, she was farther gone than I thought.

"…under ANY circumstances…"

I was just thinking how that woman needs a hobby when— No, it couldn't be— but— I was quite sure— well almost sure— No, I _am_ sure —I saw Batman-cape disappearing down the hall!

"…be returning around eleven, so make sure room service has the champagne and caviar ready to go…"

He— He did do a swift and strange disappearing act in the cave but— but he wouldn't be answering a summons _from Talia_!

I had to have been mistaken about the cape. Too much 'bat' on the brain. And we've seen where that leads:

"…I prefer Osetra caviar, not Beluga."

But it _did_ look an awful lot like Batman - not just the bit of cape but the way it moved. It was only for a split second but a girl can tell. _I_ can tell at any rate – which reminded me that Pheromones was still on the roof. What could it hurt, I figured?

So while Demonspawn gave elaborate directions about what kind of oysters were acceptable if they couldn't find the caviar she wanted… I called Azrael.

He told me… he told me he could see the Batmobile parked in the next block.

"…now about the Dom Perignon. 1959 or '62 I think…"

* * *

**_I do not understand this, Mortal. _**

_Leave it alone, Az. _

**_This was not a preliminary expedition to assess the lay of the land. _**

_Leave it be, Az. _

**_This was not a fact-finding mission. _**

_Leave it, Azrael. _

**_It was to be a confrontation. _**

_I know. _

**_But the feline has retreated?! _**

_I know. _

**_While the villain remains unchastened. _**

_Az, _

**_Why have we retreated? _**

_I don't know what's happened, Az, but look at her. _

**_She is standing on the rooftop of that jeweler. _**

_That's not what I meant. _

**_You told me to look; I have analyzed her appearance on several spectrums. _**

_Az, it's … it's like you with the costume, okay. Look at her. That's the Catwoman version of your redesigning the costume routine._

_Something rattled her and she's pulling back to process it. _

**_But I—_**

_Shut up, Az. _

**_But—_**

_Azrael. _

_Let the wookie win. _

* * *

Since I had stopped on Cartier's roof, he beat me home. He was in the cave, which isn't exactly unusual. He was working, which isn't unusual either. I said "Hi handsome" and he grunted. Not unusual.

So why did all of this "not unusual" suddenly feel so strange?

I asked how his business in town went. "Fine." It was an opening for him to tell me what it was about and instead of telling me anything he said "Fine."

That wasn't odd. It's Bruce. He's not chatty.

Still.

I mentioned that Alfred was making a roast for dinner. It was just something to say – dinner – it had nothing to do with what I'd overheard at the hotel. Bruce grumbled something about patrolling early; sandwich on a tray would be fine. His eyes never left the computer screen…

I never considered the obsessive workaholic thing suspicious before. It's his way. It's how he is; I knew that going in. But now… Suddenly I wasn't so sure. It seemed like he was avoiding me.

I walked up behind him and started rubbing his neck. I do this often when we're in the cave together— He's never closed a file before to keep me from seeing it. Not until now.

It got to be seven o'clock. Seven thirty. Seven forty-five. I wasn't exactly clock-watching, although I may have glanced at my watch a few more times as it neared dinner-reservation time.

Ten to eight he went out.

It was way too early to patrol. Even an "early" patrol. It was still daylight for pity sake.

I'm not proud of myself, but I followed him.

I think he knew. He lost me in any case, purposefully or not. I lost him just over the bridge.

I don't know why, but I went to the hotel. I don't think it was a conscious decision – I certainly don't remember making that decision… I just kind of… ended up there.

It was stupid, I know. I was being silly, I know. There was no way – NO WAY – I was going to find the Batmobile there… that would just be…

It couldn't be…

I left the Jag and swung up onto the roof of the Moxton building, knowing that when I looked over the edge of the roof, there couldn't possibly be a…

And _viola_, Batmobile. Parked two blocks from the hotel, in the alley behind the Moxton, same as before.

* * *

...to be continued...


	7. Unanswered Questions

**Strange Bedfellows  
** _Chapter 7: Unanswered Questions_

* * *

Batman extracted himself completely from the service duct above the elevator before disconnecting the overrides and recoiling the tungsten cord. Then he swapped out the tungsten cartridge for his regular silk batline. The switch accomplished, he closed the inner chamber of the grapnel launcher with a frustrated snap and looked out at the city with a grimace.

Nothing about this was proceeding satisfactorily.

Talia having dinner with Greg Brady. An assassin loose in his city chasing Riddler for god only knew what reason. And to make matters worse, Selina tailing him. For the fifth time tonight he pushed that last thought aside. It was personal. Personal was automatically relegated to later. Even his anger at the time he lost earlier losing her tail he would assign the lowest possible priority. After everything else was dealt with there would be plenty of time to work out…

"What's going on?"

The Selina in his mind was usually more accommodating than the real thing. He could tell her "Not now, Kitten" and she'd go away.

"Bruce, please."

Usually.

"Tell me what's happening, Bruce, please."

But not tonight. Tonight the thought of her was stubbornly resilient.

"Can't you see it's got me so worked up I'm chasing you around Gotham like—"

"Like a clinging, irrational demonspawn?" he spat.

"…" She looked hurt. "…That wasn't exactly kind, Bruce."

"How would you characterize it?"

The imaginary Catwoman sauntered up to him as seductively as the real one would any time he challenged her behavior. She rested her claws delicately on the emblem on his chest and looked up at him with daring, unapologetic eyes.

"I would say that I've followed you just as persistently as your own thoughts have been pursuing me all night."

"No."

"Not just a river in Egypt, Bruce."

_"What?" _

"Denial. Bad joke, I know. But come on, you have work to do. You know you'll be able to find me in bed tonight and we can settle all this then. How do you explain my being here at all right now? How can you justify wasting this time thinking about it when you should be out there—"

"Then let me," he graveled dangerously. "Go away and let me be. You already cost me time tonight, the real you. I could have met Brady in Chinatown but for the time I lost _losing your tail_. I can't get the job done if the thought of you keeps working its way back into— DAMNIT Catwoman, you haven't been this much of a damnable distraction since—"

He was alone. The chimera had, in the way of cats, vanished when she was offended.

Fine. Let her. It was true whether she wanted to hear it or not. He hadn't found it so difficult to shut her out since the old days. This new image of her tonight was disturbingly like that felonious Catwoman of the rooftops, the one he had to resist for the sake of the mission, the one who took her revenge by implanting herself in his imagination… All those nights as he lay in bed, all those hours trying to write out the log entries of an encounter that should have— Damn. He was doing it again.

By now he had reached the Batmobile. A part of him ached to go home to her and talk it out. It was the part of him that had ached to hold her on all those rooftops in the past, the part of him that wanted to be tender, to meet her half way, to believe it was all possible for them… The rest of him squelched the impulse as it always had. Back then it was because he was a crimefighter and she a thief. Now it was because he was a crimefighter and there was work to do.

"Hatch open," he barked into the tiny communicator. He would start at the Iceberg—

The hatch opened and Catwoman – the real Catwoman – regarded him stiffly from the passenger seat. She spoke the same words with the same intonation as her imaginary doppelganger had only moments before.

"What's going on?"

* * *

Freeze was telling the igloo story again and Jonathan Crane knew he could let his mind wander. He kept a discreet eye on Raven, and when the pretty little thing moved from her podium and disappeared towards the backroom, Crane began counting silently to himself: One-Ablutophobia. Two-Achluophobia. Three-Agateophobia. Four-Ailurophobia… all the way up to Sixty-Graphophobia, the fear of handwriting, when he was sure a full minute had passed.

Victor was up to the part of the story where the ice-sculpture of Nora was melting. Crane excused himself and headed for the hallway to the men's room, but instead of turning at the door, he continued on into the backroom. Raven was waiting, hugged him briefly, and pulled him towards the basement, murmuring about prying eyes and more privacy downstairs.

He followed the gentle tug on his arm, letting her guide him down the dark stairs, although he wondered, not for the first time, how this situation had come about and how far he would let it continue. He certainly never set out to get a girlfriend. He started paying attention to Raven get her alone. He'd only wanted a guinea pig – or a guinea fowl in this case, to test his new gender-based fear toxin. He needed a female; a fragile, fearful female; and Oswald's comely little hostess seemed like the ideal candidate.

He didn't plant the lizard on her podium. It was one of those things. He was pondering the need for a test subject, and a lizard snuck into the Iceberg and took up residence on her reservation book. She had such a divine scream when she discovered it, how could a man not notice such wild abandon in expressing her terror. He continued to watch her as the rest of the Iceberg went on about its business. He noticed that for the rest of the night she wouldn't touch the podium. For the next three, she tensed whenever she was around it. It was hypnotic to watch. The lizard was long gone, but because it had been on that spot and had frightened her, she continued to eye the book suspiciously, a primitive cringing in fear of a long-dead volcano. He had to have her -for his test subject.

So he approached and they talked. They talked for hours. While his object remained to isolate her for capture, he had to admit he enjoyed their conversation. He did finally get her alone, but when the moment came for him to strike, it… it didn't exactly turn out as he planned. Then she kissed him and he really couldn't help recalling the '78 Berkley study on the correlation between fear and other states of heightened arousal.

It was a week later, he still hadn't found a test subject, and he was following Raven into the basement. Fear was the last thing on his mind – until that lovely scream of Raven's sounded again and the wire cut into his neck.

* * *

Batman did not explain himself. Every fiber in his being screamed that he did not and would not explain himself. He worked in his own way and that did not include Catwoman following him around, letting herself into the Batmobile, and demanding explanations. The JLA, GCPD, Alfred, Robin, Oracle and Nightwing, everybody knew: his way was _the_ way, period.

"I had to meet someone," he heard himself explain quietly.

"Someone," she repeated. It didn't sound like a question, but it was.

He sighed. Was it only this morning she was so unnervingly cheerful? Laughing about the Post, singing and smiling in the morning room? Where was all that self-assurance?

"Next stop is the Iceberg," he said, revving the engine. "Come or stay."

"You know I can't be seen getting out of the Batmobile at the Iceberg," she answered quietly.

He touched a button and the hatch on her side eased open with a soft pneumatic hiss. She started to get out… In a flash, Bruce saw their whole relationship unraveling just as quickly as her confidence had done. He saw himself graveling a curt "See you at home" before driving off, saw her going back to the manor hurt and confused, or else following him again and his having to lose her. He saw himself getting home angry and frustrated, with her waiting there alone and baffled, his lashing out, her lashing back. Then an awful tension in the bedroom, her turned away, her back to him as she lay on the farthest edge of the bed. One night, two, three, and then finally—

Bruce's arm shot out to grab her wrist before she left the car.

"Hey!" she hissed in surprise more than anger.

He looked up, their eyes meeting, and he tugged the arm back into the car.

"I'll drop you a few blocks shy of the 'Berg," he said simply. "No one will see."

She settled back into her seat and fastened the safety harness as the hatch quietly closed again. She said nothing, nor did he until the car was in motion.

"I was meeting Brady," he explained calmly. "I wanted to intercept him before he left Chinatown, but I missed him." He decided not to mention the reason he missed that connection was her tailing him. He thought back to that image of Selina in the bed, curled up, turned away, pulling as far away from him as she could physically get. It was an outcome he desperately wanted to avoid, and making her defensive was not the way to go about it.

"I knew Brady was going to that hotel tonight, I was able to intercept him in the elevator."

"How— How did you know that— and what does any of it—"

"He's having dinner with Talia," Batman answered. The disapproval in his voice was palpable, and Selina picked up on it immediately.

"Why do you care?" she asked quietly.

There was silence for a half-minute until the car pulled into an alley. Then Bruce cut the engine abruptly and turned to her. He stared for another half minute, her question hanging in the air. Then he pulled back the cowl.

"Selina."

More silence. He was hoping for some kind of response, although he couldn't say what. She might have at least followed his lead and removed her mask.

"Selina, you shouldn't need to ask a question like that."

"Well I do, whether you think I should or not. Because there's _only one possible reason_ I can think of and it just _can't_ be that."

His lip twitched as an ironic parallel occurred to him, and then dissolved into a grim scowl when he realized the implication.

"I can understand what you're saying. Last year, when Talia arranged for that cat's eye crown to be taken from the history museum, I felt exactly the same way. There was one explanation that _simply couldn't be_. I knew you weren't the one responsible. I didn't know who did take it or why, but I knew you could not be involved."

Bruce paused, considering whether to go on. The fact was that when he caught himself trusting that way, he reacted badly. Trust meant vulnerability, and that was not what he bargained for when he first reached out for Selina. He didn't know how the situation ever got that far, and at the time he wasn't at all happy about it. Most of his subsequent behavior was chalked up to "Hell Month" and he'd let that impression stand. But the truth was: the realization that he now trusted her had knocked him back. Since that night, he'd grown used to the idea. They'd grown closer and closer as a result of that mutual faith and comfort with one another… or what he had _assumed_ was mutual faith and comfort.

"I knew what was and wasn't possible, regardless of how it looked, because of what I know of you, Selina. And it's a little painful to realize that more than a year later you're _still_ not that sure of _me_?"

Selina turned away and looked out the window, then back at him.

"Okay," she said finally, "Fair point. You're not… _jealous_… of Brady and Talia, and I should know that without asking. You'll tell me the rest when you're ready, and in the meantime…" She looked again out the window and then turned back, this time with a naughty grin, "…meantime, I'll go have a drink at the Iceberg and see what the grapevine has to say."

He offered a warm smile, fleeting but more than a lip twitch, then he replaced the cowl. The worst was over. Things might not be "settled" exactly, but they were clear of the whirlpool that threatened to suck them under. Bruce watched as she exited the car and disappeared at the end of the alley, heading towards the Iceberg. He didn't need, or especially want, the kind of intelligence-gathering she had in mind. He hadn't said why he was going to the Iceberg. It wasn't something "the grapevine" would have any knowledge of. But her offer was a way of moving on, and he wasn't about to refuse. He would give her some time to have a drink and hear the latest, then he would proceed in his own way.

While he waited, the Selina of his imagination returned, plucked a set of batcuffs from his utility belt and immediately set to work trying to pick them.

"You're looking at this all wrong," she said. "It's not a big trust thing like the cat's eye crown. It's you and Eddie. It's your not telling me about that riddle. You know perfectly well I wouldn't be working with Eddie. You know perfectly well I'm not going back to that life. You _know_… _perfectly_… _well_ that there is nothing to worry about. But you still don't like it. Right?"

He said nothing.

"Well?"

Batman snapped to attention, all personal thoughts swept aside by the instant priority as a figure ran into the alley and up to the Batmobile – it was Catwoman – Selina – back already? – and knocking on the window.

"You better get down there," she panted the moment the hatch started to open. "You're not going to believe this one."

* * *

Nightwing stood on the ledge outside the window, watching the scene within before deciding to go inside. Jean Paul Valley – Azrael – sat talking to Barbara. He had brought one of the chairs from the kitchen and positioned it alongside her computer desk. He had it turned the wrong way and was straddling it. Barbara had brought them tea. At least _she_ was the one drinking from the 'Love the Librarian' mug, Dick thought sourly.

Still. It was petty -and stupid- to be lurking outside his own home this way. He opened the window with a brisk twap to announce his presence to those inside. Then he slipped in and strode indifferently to the couch. "Honey, I'm home," he declared, flopping onto the soft cushion so that his legs landed well apart. He removed the mask and tossed it to the side table, then turned to acknowledge their guest. "Jean Paul," he said simply. It was all very casual, all free and informal, but the undercurrent was subtly aggressive: the alpha male announcing his dominance.

The alpha female was less than amused. Barbara had never known Dick to lounge around that way in costume. It was a ludicrous performance and she was just about to call him on it —when the OraCom went wild, as multiple channels began pinging simultaneously.

Dick and Jean Paul transformed instantly. Personal differences swept aside, they moved behind her, one looking over each shoulder at the flickering screens.

"What is it?" Dick asked.

"Ambulance, fire, police dispatch – and Batman's channel but – what the hell?" Oracle held her hand over the earpiece trying to concentrate. "It's Selina – She's on B's channel – from the Batmobile – and he's on the same line from the cowl system – they're talking over each other a bit – oh man, that freaks me out when they talk in sync that way. Don't you just hate that?"

"Yes," Dick and Jean Paul answered in unison. They glared at each other – then both began to speak at once: "So what–" They stopped, like two drivers at an intersection, and Dick mimed taking his hands off the wheel, yielding the right of way.

"So what are they saying?" Jean Paul asked, "What is going on?"

"I can't tell. Too much chatter, too much going on still – but it sounds like all hell is breaking loose at the Iceberg."

* * *

It wasn't the first time Bruce considered installing a regular bed in the Batcave. The slim cots in the med-facility were adequate for their purpose, but they couldn't be called comfortable. And there were times, like now – in fact after every go-round with Killer Croc – that the stairs up to the manor and from there up to the bedrooms, seemed an insurmountable obstacle. It would be so nice to just lie back once Alfred finished stitching up his shoulder and not have to move his battered limbs until morning.

He mentioned this, knowing the reply would be what it had always been.

"Absolutely not, sir. If you had the means to sleep comfortably down here, I fear we would not see you for weeks at a time."

Alfred emphasized his veto with a slightly more vehement tug than was necessary as he pulled the thread taut on the last suture. Then he gave the shoulder a final pat and said goodnight. Bruce heard a quiet "Go right in, Miss" just beyond the doorway, and then Selina appeared.

"All patched up?" she asked lightly, inspecting the wound.

He grunted.

"Croc did this?"

"Yes."

"Because you kept him and the rest of them at the Iceberg from killing that DEMON-guy?"

"Yes."

"And he's in the hospital now."

"Yes."

"And so is Scarecrow?"

Bruce nodded.

"I am so confused. The only thing that's made any sense today is Talia running around town in a catsuit. And if that's not a sorry state of—"

"I can explain."

"_COULD YOU?!_ Could you really? That'd be nice. I would appreciate that. Should we break out the PowerPoint and hand puppets, or do you think you can do this without visual aids?"

Bruce took a deep breath and ran his fingers through his hair. He understood her agitation, but it wasn't helping matters.

"The man in the hospital is called Il'Nar," he began calmly. "He's one of Ra's assassins. He attacked Scarecrow and Raven in the Iceberg basement. It went badly, he was expecting one person, not two. He jumped Crane, Raven screamed and fought back, the others heard the commotion. The League of Assassins aren't amateurs. If it was just Oswald's muscle or a couple of Frieze's henchmen or even a half-dozen Ghost Dragons, he'd be on a plane home right now instead of a respirator in the ICU."

"But once Killer Croc got into it…"

"Exactly. That must be the point where you came in. After they'd just captured Il'Nar and Croc was holding him down."

"That would explain the lynch mob vibe I was getting. I couldn't get the details but I knew somebody was hurt and they wouldn't call an ambulance because paramedics beget cops and anything official would interfere with their vi-… handling of the situation."

"You were about to say 'vigilante justice'," Bruce noted.

Selina shrugged a non-denial and for a long minute neither spoke. She had moved behind him and he felt her finger trace from the fresh stitches down to the older scars on his back. Then he felt her lips on the back of his neck, kissing softly out to the shoulder. This, he knew, was her way of smoothing over 'vigilante justice'.

"So why does Ra's want to off Jonathan?" she asked suddenly.

"He doesn't. Riddler was the target."

Selina's mouth dropped open. "Eddie? But that's nuts! Why? Why on earth."

"I don't know," Bruce admitted. "I just don't know," he repeated under his breath.

"You know an awful lot though. How?"

The corner of his lip twitched.

"Think about it, Kitten. How do I know? Why was I at the hotel if not to see Talia?"

"You said you went to intercept… _Brady_." Selina's brow had wrinkled, now her eyes gleamed and an uncontrollable smile spread across her lips as she spoke the name and the final piece of the puzzle fell into place. "The message before was from Greg Brady?!"

Bruce nodded.

"Maybe that 'you can do so much better than this life of crime' speech of mine, as you so sweetly referred to it, _is_ a bit more convincing than you care to admit."

"He's been working for you since then, since that fight? Greg Brady has been working for you all this time?"

"In a way. He's been… 'planting some seeds' inside the DEMON organization for me, but he hasn't been actively working against them or passing me information. We agreed that would be too dangerous for him. But when it came to actually ordering someone killed—"

"THAT'S why you looked so put out at the thought of him and Talia!" Selina blurted, and Bruce couldn't help but chuckle at her priorities.

"Yes Kitten, That's the reason. It wasn't _him_ being close to _her. _I was – and still am – concerned about _her_ in a position to influence _him_. Anyway, for now I'm confident Brady is reliable. He's playing along, but he drew the line at sending this Il'Nar to kill Nigma. When Talia ordered the hit (and the order did come from her it seems, not from Ra's), she told him that Riddler was now staying at her hotel. He couldn't flat out refuse the sanction, but he bought some time by sending Il'Nar to Nigma's last known location_, the Iceberg_, and telling him to wait there for his chance. Then he got word to me; that was the message this morning. After I met him, I went to the hotel to collect Nigma and that, I assume, is when you and Azrael spotted me."

Selina nodded. Then she bit her lip thoughtfully. Bruce had an impulse to kiss it…

"So where is Eddie now?"

…The impulse faded.

"No idea. He'd vanished from the hotel by the time I got there."

"Does he know they're out to kill him?"

"I don't know."

"And we don't know why?"

"No."

"Whew. Okay. Lot of question marks left then. Heh, he'd like that."

Bruce glared.

"I don't."

"So then you went back to see Brady tonight – and when I screwed up your rendezvous in Chinatown, you went back to the hotel because he'd told you he would be there meeting Talia?"

"Right."

"What a mess."

"It's not exactly the most satisfying night of crimefighting I've ever experienced."

"So what happens now?"

"That's a very good question."

* * *

...to be continued...


	8. Caviar, Iced Tea, and Tarot

**Strange Bedfellows  
**_Chapter 8: Caviar, Iced Tea, and Tarot _

* * *

"Now to truly experience the wonder of caviar," Talia instructed, "you want to spoon a good-size portion onto your toast point, there, just like this, and then place it in your mouth without biting…"

Greg's eyes grew wide but he let his pretty date feed him the little triangle of bread she had prepared, heaped with gooey black fish eggs and a sliver of onion.

"…now use that silver tongue of yours to pop them against the roof of your mouth, to release the full flavor of the rich delicacy."

Greg managed a smile as he did so and then swallowed. His palette wasn't accustomed to the "full flavor of the rich delicacy," to him it tasted a lot like "too much salt." But he liked trying new things, and he appreciated the effort Talia was making on his behalf –not to mention the cost of this extravagance (as well as that of the champagne, a luxury he liked much better). He wasn't at all sure why she was doing it.

Well he understood _why _in the strict sense; he wasn't an idiot. Woman invites you out to dinner then up to her room afterwards and there's a candlelit table waiting with a bottle of champagne… He just wasn't clear on _why him_. He didn't get it. He didn't get it back in Chinatown when she transitioned so eerily from having Nigma killed to dropping those hints about a charming little bistro near her hotel… then once he'd let the hint pass came the flat out invitation.

Greg was far from sheltered but he had never been on a date like this. It was like you see in the movies, the posh restaurant on the Upper East Side, so loud and busy, crowded with beautiful people in fashionable clothes. There were older ones too that seemed to breathe money and power, especially the men in the gray suits that kept eying them while they waited for their table. At first Greg assumed they were just admiring Talia. She was a pretty little thing, petite and brunette, which was certainly his favorite combination, and with such a reserved, exotic air about her. Certainly that warranted a look or two from men that have working eyes, who could blame them.

But then, as Talia and Greg walked to their table, he couldn't help but notice the eyes that followed her were more hostile than admiring. Phrases like "Yeah it's her" and "some nerve" wafted through the air. They could have meant anybody, but Greg didn't think so. Then while they looked at the menus, he could hear two men distinctly from the table behind him:

"What's she calling herself now? Arugula or something. Like her face wasn't plastered on enough magazines that she'd go unnoticed."

Greg winced, suspecting Talia could hear as well as he could. 'Arugula' was the way the reservation desk had butchered her name and most of the patrons had heard it called out several times in the lobby and lounge before they were seated. There could be no question now who these hostile pockets of dialogue were discussing. Talia ignored it all the same, studying her menu with icy dignity.

"…Head, huh, 'bout all she's good for if you ask me…" "Oh but pronounced 'Heed' David, don't forget, it's pronounced 'Heed.' Affected little bitch."

Both men seated behind him laughed bitterly, and Greg threw down his napkin angrily.

"Many people lost money in the reversal of LexCorp's fortunes," Talia said calmly to her companion, seeing that he was ready to cause a scene on her behalf. "It is most understandable that they wish to blame someone for their disappointments."

"Still, Miss al Ghul, people should have more consideration."

"Not in this city," she muttered bitterly, "but please, call me Talia. Now then, the goose livers look tasty, how about that to begin?"

Greg said nothing but his eyes raced over the appetizers in search of something-anything that sounded better than goose livers.

"I'm actually more of a Joe's Crab Shack kind of guy, Miss al-Talia. You know, All You Can Eat Fridays, jalapeno poppers, heh hehe."

Talia affixed him with an icy stare.

"How about the stuffed mushrooms," he suggested, grasping at the first words that looked familiar. "Stuffed with crab, capers and - uh oh, Arugula." He gave a happy laugh – which startled Talia very much.

"You – can laugh at this?"

"What else is there to do?"

Talia stared.

"Hey, Miss Talia Head al Ghul, you're talking to _Greg Brady_ here. 'I'll take Names People Make Fun Of for 500, Jack'!"

He laughed again. Talia didn't seem to get the joke at all, but Greg recognized her polite smile for what it was and encouraged it until it became a tentative laugh.

He had been in DEMON long enough to hear stories enough about "the Great One's daughter," but he was beginning to think that under it all she was a regular girl that just needed some loosening up like all the rest of them. Get her away from this place with the goose livers and nasty patrons that hated her and find a nice roadhouse where you tossed the peanut shells onto the floor and who knows….

* * *

Hiding over a head shop, how was that for irony? Riddler, the greatest brain among all Batman's foes, taking refuge over a head shop.

This is how Edward Nigma consoled himself about his present circumstances. He was in hiding. He was on the run for his life – and he wasn't even sure how it all came about. He had just got settled into the hotel where Talia was staying, conveniently positioned right across the hall from her, he made contact and turned on the old Nigma charm.

But the silly woman had refused to be charmed. Talia al Ghul turned out to be not _quite_ as stupid as he supposed going in – which was terribly inconsiderate of her. She saw through his pretense and she refused to be gulled. That was unusual. Too many women in his experience would latch onto the slightest hint of non-hostility and decide romance was in the air. Stand next to them in a group photo and they start picking out china patterns. He had Talia pegged as exactly that kind of needy headcase, but she had truly surprised him.

But then! Having had brains enough to see through his charade, she reverted to form and foolishly let him know she smelled the rat.

Why?

Why? Why? _Why_ do women do such things?? If you're going to be stupid, then BE STUPID and step into the trap. If you're to be savvy enough to see what's what and set a trap of your own, you should at least have the brains to cover your tracks!

Nigma doubted that a creature like Talia could present him with any kind of actual _challenge_, but he would have been happy to engage her in a test of wits (such as they were) simply as something to do. It would have kept his mind occupied as they both went through the pretense of courtship while trying to destroy each other.

But to simply TELL him to his face that he was an unappealing little worm and she was going to have him stepped on! What kind of game was that??

Women. Women were a riddle. Women were A RIDDLE.

So now he was in hiding in this cramped little room above a head shop, and the irony that appealed to him so much when he rented it was fading fast in the cloud of odors emanating from below. Cheap incense was bad enough on its own, but cheap incense covering marijuana was downright nauseating.

He had to THINK. Quite apart from the whole 'hired killers hunting him' situation, there was the Batman question to consider. He NEEDED TO THINK – **HE NEEDED TO THINKTHINKTHINKTHINKTHINK. **

There had to be a way to clear his mind a bit so he could process all this. There had to be. There just had to.

* * *

Nightwing was positioned on a rooftop across from Gotham Memorial Hospital. With the Scarecrow and a DEMON assassin both inside as patients, it was understood among the Bat-family that the place needed to be kept under 24-hour watch. The midday shift was the most demanding at this time of year. And that, Nightwing knew, is why he had been assigned it. Barbara's little punishment for his giving Jean Paul a hard time.

It was hot and unpleasant to be in a dark Kevlar costume on a rooftop in the heat of summer. The sunlight glared off the tiny viewscreen where Oracle piped the feeds from the hospital's surveillance cameras. He had to squint. He was sweating like a farm animal as the sun beat down on his dark hair and he had to squint all because he had acted like a husband and Babs didn't like it.

Dick knew he was being petty. It was the kind of grievance you nursed on a stakeout simply for something to do. Otherwise out of sheer boredom you might start to imagine crazy things like Selina's Jaguar pulling into the parking garage below.

Dick stared at the car as a woman's slim, white hand reached out of the window to take the timestamp from the machine. He saw the car disappear into the garage and then turned his attention to the viewscreen. He punched up the lobby cameras and waited to see if a shapely dark-haired woman got off the elevator from the garage… none did. He checked the ICU floor, and then the hallway outside the Scarecrow's room… Nothing. He started to check the lobby again when he felt a delicate tap on his shoulder and a thermos bobbed into his peripheral vision.

"Heya, handsome, something cold to drink?"

His head jerked up from the screen… Either Bruce was finally providing rooftop cocktail waitresses for their convenience, or else…

"Hi, Selina."

"Hi," she smiled.

"I saw your car. Didn't think you'd be visiting Crane," he said, taking the thermos gratefully. "Is this iced tea?"

She nodded. "Bruce wanted me to look in on Jean Paul at his apartment. So I figured as long as I was coming into town, I'd come see you before heading over to JP's. We're supposed to be working together on this Talia idiocy. Although now that he's gone and broken his leg, I might be off the hook there. Do I have you to thank for that, by the way?"

"Boy you really don't like him," Dick couldn't help but chuckle. "I knew there was a reason we got on so well."

"No, I don't," she admitted frankly. "Tied up with a lot of bad memories, I guess."

Dick sipped his tea and ran his fingers through his sweat-soaked hair.

"That's true for most of us," he mentioned.

She shrugged, not caring, and again Dick had to chuckle. For Selina, other people's views on any subject, from the laws against burglary to the care and feeding of bat-wannabes, was entirely their own business. Her view was dictated by her own feline fiat and it always would be.

"It was Croc that broke Azrael's leg," Dick explained, changing the subject. "The two of us went down to the Iceberg just as soon as Oracle said there was trouble. Croc was holding the DEMON guy and fighting off Batman at the same time."

Selina raised an eyebrow.

"Yeah," Dick understood her skepticism. "Even for Croc, that's not possible. He couldn't do both, so he threw DEMON-guy down and sat on him – cracked up his ribcage, damn near collapsed a lung, I think. We knew we had to get him to move before the guy was crushed. Even Batman's way can take a while with a monster like Crockers so—"

"Flaming sword?"

"Flaming sword. Azrael got him to stand up alright, but then it's not just Killer Croc, it's 'angry and scorched' Croc. Picked Az up like a basketball and made a free throw straight into the bar."

"Ah."

"Yeah… So. …Bruce has you going to see him?"

She nodded. "Yep. I'm not sure why. If it's just to 'be nice' and make a gesture – or to get me out of the way for a while."

"Selina! I can't believe you'd even think that last one. I mean, ok, Bruce'll do that, I know – to _me_. To me, sure. To Babs, certainly. To Tim – weekly. But c'mon, getting _you_ out of the way?"

"It's a little weird at home right now, Dick. Something's happening with us. There's something going on that neither of us seems able to talk about or even admit to—"

"You're just getting this now?" Dick asked in a flat deadpan.

Selina's eyes flared angrily, but she said nothing. Dick gulped the remaining tea from the thermos and handed it back.

"Selina, I really think it's nothing more than he didn't like that riddle coming in with the Catwoman goggle picture."

The angry stare morphed into one of shocked confusion.

"Riddle?"

"Y-yeah. …Oops. Way to go, Grayson. Guess he hadn't mentioned that to you?"

Selina slumped wearily. "No. Not like he tells me all about 'work' in the normal course of things – and I don't expect him to tell me everything but… damn. Riddles now. _And_ demonspawn. This whole thing is such a mess."

"Talia? I haven't heard this one. You said you're working with Az on it? What's Miss Nepal up to now?"

"Oh, I don't know," Selina sighed. "Trying to get under my skin probably. Running around town as a second-rate Catwoman. I mean really, at this point, what's another one give or take? I've already got this idiotic goggle-bitch in the Post with cat-powers and bad hair. At least the spawn's got decent hair."

Dick stared.

"Well she does," Selina insisted.

"Maybe she wants to bait you - get you to try and kill her."

"I don't kill people," Selina reminded him sweetly. "I make them wish they'd never been born. Speaking of which…" She stood, taking the thermos, and moved to leave, "I'm off to the Imposter's to take my medicine. Checking in on the miserable…" She trailed off, then turned back to Nightwing thoughtfully.

He waited – the mention of Azrael had obviously set her off in some way and he was curious what might follow.

"Dick, when _it_ happened… with… Bane. If I'd come to you in Bludhaven, I mean when I saw he was gone and that it was an imposter in the batsuit, if I'd come to you and asked, would you have told me – something? anything? that he wasn't dead at least?"

Dick gave a sad smile and a sadder nod. It was one of those questions that couldn't be answered fairly… It was impossible to know what he would have done at that time – but it was easy to see the answer she needed to hear. "Of course."

* * *

Nigma only took three steps into the head shop before he reconsidered. Much as he felt the need to calm his agitated mind, he simply wasn't prepared to get high. He got such a tremendous kick out of THINKING, he couldn't risk gumming up the works of the priceless mechanism of his mind. One need look no further than that sorry chap behind the counter to assess the risks involved using these substances.

"_Dude_," the clerk began (because it was the beginning of a sentence, Nigma figured), "Can I, like, help ya?"

"That's okay, _Dude_," Nigma answered back (because it sometimes amused him to communicate with inferior minds on their own level), "I only wanted to read these notices on your bulletin board." "OR DO A MUDDLE YON" he muttered under his breath, improvising an anagram for "you addled moron." He made a pretense of looking at the posted ads: a band called Shards was playing at a club called Redlight - although how that related to the picture of a candle dripping wax onto a human skull even the Riddler's great brain couldn't fathom. There were rooms for rent and futons for sale. The cheap mimeographed sheets were all pink, yellow or blue – except for a single one in white, with two simple words in plain black type:

??  
GOT QUESTIONS ?

A man of Edward Nigma's mentality couldn't help but be intrigued.

"I say, Dude!" he called to the store clerk, "Would you know who posted this enigmatic sign with the question marks?"

"Oh that's Madame Keila, Dude. She's got that little place in the back, just go round to the alley, green door by the dumpster, can't miss it."

Eddie's face lit up and he waved a cheery wave of thanks to the helpful clerk. A green door, what clearer sign could he hope for?

* * *

Azrael had been quiet. At first it might have been the pain killer administered before setting the broken leg. But now, Jean Paul was convinced it had more to do with the DVD he was watching to pass the time.

_**Mortal?** _Azrael spoke at last,_ **This program we are watching…** _

_Sex and the City. _

**_Er, yes. It is not appropriate for one like myself. _**

_You didn't mind the SIMS bikini babes in the hot tub. _

**_I merely drew your attention to elements of the game your tiny avatar did not seem aware of. I in no way— _**

_Oh whatever, you Dumasian stuffed shirt. This show is educational, remember that. That's what Green Arrow taught us. _

**_I do not know that he was completely serious when he said that. _**

_Sigh. Look Az, the Order didn't prepare you to deal with aggressive women. And lord knows the girls at New England Polytech never gave me a clue. This show helps. That guy is called Mr. Big. You watch him, and next time Catwoman throws us a curve, that's the stuff to give her. Forget adding gold epaulettes to the armor, just stand back like Mr.Big and say… _

**_Nice dress._**

_Nice dress?! We watch six seasons of this stuff and THAT'S what you come up? _

**_This is not suitable for one such as I, Mortal. Give me the remote. _ **

_No. _

**_Although this Charlotte does display a seemly virtue. _ **

_Really? _

_**She is modest. She does not discuss her orgasms as much as the others do.**_

_Eh, Yeah I guess. _

**_Her heart must be pure indeed to resist the wanton influence of her comrades. _ **

_I like Miranda. _

_**You would. Beware the temptations of the flesh, Mortal.**_

_It's a TV show! _

_**It is this lack of discipline that allowed our adversary to gain the advantage and lay us low.**_

_It was the fact that he's a six-foot-five, 270-pound reptileman that could pick us up and throw us like a lawn dart. _

**Answer the door, Mortal. **

The doorbell rang before Jean Paul could sputter his surprise. He juggled his bowl of popcorn and crutches, muttering all the while about insufferable angels that were more literal than the Deep Blue chess program— when the door swung open and he found himself staring into the icy green eyes of Selina Kyle.

"Nice dress," he remarked meekly.

* * *

Riddler was less than thrilled on reaching Madame Keila's green door to see the sign above advertising "Horoscope, Palm Reading, and Tarot."

"What is a lot of hooey?" he queried at the sign. But he went in anyway, remembering the original Got Questions? ad that brought him here and the green door he had considered a happy omen.

Opening the door he was again hit with a wave of aromas. It was similar to the smell in his room – for this place too shared a wall with the headshop and the same combination of patchouli and weedseamed to permeate. But there was something else, something he couldn't identify… Bizarre smells seemed to be his special curse this week. He began to wonder if he would be in this position at all if he'd just made the best of the dead rat in the air conditioner and stayed in his hideout in the first place.

"You crinkle nose," a woman's voice observed. "You no like the smell of my sauerkraut?"

"Is that what it is?" Eddie wheezed, looking around. The woman, presumably Madame Keila, had entered from a dark backroom not unlike Kittlemeier's. She had dark, greasy hair pulled into a tight bun, an unflattering style that made her look older than she probably was. "I'm sure your sauerkraut is very good on its own," Eddie offered. "It's just combined with those other smells from next door it presented something of a puzzle." Madame Keila smiled, revealing wildly crooked teeth.

"You want fortune?" she asked peremptorily.

"Yes!" he answered instantly. A question and a play on words, how could he resist?

"Sit," she ordered, pointing to a side table. Nigma did as instructed and Madame Keila disappeared into the back. When she returned, she wore a heavy-looking paisley shawl over her sleeveless cotton shirt.

"That looks warm," he noted. "You don't have to bother with it on my account."

She shrugged it off her shoulders but looked at him critically.

"You don't believe, do you?"

"No," he admitted, "But I like the amount of your conversation that you phrase as a question."

"Okay fine," she said decisively, as if suddenly understanding everything. Then she laid out several cards, placed her hands over a specific one and pointed down at it with her middle finger. "Turn."

Eddie obeyed, flipping the card over, and looking at it with alarm.

"That man has bat-wings," he noted, pointing to the card.

"Is Devil," Madame Keila explained.

"Could be," Eddie admitted. _Or he could be an obnoxiously rich billionaire dating my best friend, _came the ancillary thought.

"You have strong feelings against this man," Madame Keila noted, observing her subject's reaction rather than interpreting the card.

"That is a misconception," Riddler replied, puffing himself up with great dignity. "_Others_ may hate him. I merely enjoy the game. I _rejoice_ in his existence, for at last I have an opponent smart enough to play with. When I can fool him it is a success, intellectually and artistically."

Madame Keila nodded. If the customer wanted to do all the talking, that was fine with her. They were sure to be happy with their reading that way. She pointed to the next card and Nigma flipped it over.

"Ace of Swords… is Air sign, has to do with brain. Great mental powers at work."

Nigma puffed up importantly. "That is very true."

"Upside down means mental illness. Compulsion."

"No no no no no," he shook his head. "That is another misconception. Look, any game, there are rules. Giving a fair clue, that's just one of the rules of the game. The way people carry on like it's some kind of a disease, it's quite ridiculous. To be sure, there are those who are downright crazy, but I am not one of them! It's only inferior intellects that can't understand that, so they call me crazy." He pointed back to the Ace, "It's the curse of genius. The mediocrities have always had to rework it so you're not better than them, you must be _ill_." He turned the card around so it was right side up, indicating genius rather than compulsion.

Madame Keila gave an uncertain nod and pointed to a third card, but Nigma wasn't finished.

"And another thing, I don't go around saying all those stupid people should die, not like some, not like Miss Demonspawn and her old man, you want to talk about who's crazy. I have absolutely no problem if all the dimwits want to go on living. I'd like them to KNOW how fucking stupid they really are, but that's as far as it goes. Because there are smart people in this world and there are stupid ones – which brings us right back to bat-wings over here…" He pointed back to the Devil card and began punching his pointing finger into the table to accentuate each word. "And I really need to know which one he is."

Madame Keila was now sitting back on her chair, one hand on her hip, the other leaning on the table.

"You finished?" she asked dryly.

"No," Nigma said petulantly. They sat in silence for a minute, his rant having spent itself. Then he began wagging his finger while he thought. "I need some kind of a test. That's what I need to do…. Well let's see, there is that outstanding cat-clue that I was due to send out and never did. What if I sent it in some sly way that he'll never know about," Riddler pointed to the Devil card yet again, "unless he's y'know, and then he'll figure it out and kick my ass… and then I'll know! Ha! That's pretty good. And I've already got the cat. Cute enough little thing, but what do I want with a pet cat. I only got it for that bit with Talia. Yeah that's not bad. Send the clue on the cat. It's good, it's really really good. Hot damn it's the perfect plan!"

He stood happily and held out his arms. "Thank you, Madame Keila!" he exclaimed, bending down to kiss the good lady, when he suddenly bolted upright and slammed his hand back on the table.

"No, damnit all, there's a snag. I'm still in hiding, because that miserable little bitch has sent some kind of super assassins to kill me. DAMN THAT SILLY WOMAN ANYWAY! AM I NEVER to get this operation off the ground because of her interference. Demons Demons everywhere I turn. This is all that Ra's al Ghul's fault, you know. That miserable hairdo. And whipped! the guy is whipped by his own girlie-spawn. Not just this one, oh no, he's got a whole litter of the psychobabes. Spare the rod and all that; they up and killed him, that's what they did. Someone replaced that Lazarus shower gel he uses with something a little more potent, you hear what I'm sayin'. Took over his whole operation. Girlified it too. I hear they're putting in a Pier One. And the henchmen used to think it was rough! Ha! Just wait. At least Ra's never sent you on a feminine products/Haagen Daaz run or had you exiled 'because you look like that two-timing bastard Achmed.'"

"Your reading is concluded," Madame Keila cut in. "Twenty dollars."

"You don't even want to know what it takes to be an Ubu these days," Nigma replied.

"Twenty dollars, please," Madame Keila repeated.

"Yeah whatever," Nigma reached into his wallet and pulled out a bill, tossed it onto the table and left in disgust.

Madame Keila went straight to the telephone and called her contact at the Gotham Post. "Gregory, I have had such visions, great events unfolding in the Far East. I have such predictions for you… it is about Death, grim and inevitable, like that song, the Shubert, Death and the Maiden."

* * *

...to be continued...


	9. Round Robin

**Strange Bedfellows  
** _Chapter 9: Round Robin_

* * *

So I sat in Jean Paul's living room and let him tell me all about this case he had been working on that kept him out of Gotham for so long. He sat in a tall chair, his broken leg, bound up in a ferociously thick cast, rested on the sofa. It didn't look very comfortable, but he said he wanted to sit higher than the leg and this was the best arrangement he had found.

"So the attempted murder led to the movie set and that opened up the whole espionage thing, and then the smuggling and the drugs and finally the whole customs debacle with this bonded warehouse that was nothing but a front for the Russian mob. So it was quite a case."

"Quite a case?" I drawled, "You law and order boys are so painfully literal sometimes. The Iceberg crowd would call something like that what it really is: a runaway bobsled to hell."

He looked confused, then smiled. He doesn't get my sense of humor.

I had done what Bruce asked: I had looked in on him. I brought him Alfred's cookies. And I had stayed long enough to be polite. There was no need to keep this farce going… Or at least: there was no reason related to "Hey Kitten, how about looking in on the poor guy with the broken leg."

"You want some popcorn," Jean Paul asked.

It was my opening to leave; instead I said "sure." I even offered to make it so he wouldn't have to get up. He followed me into the kitchen anyway to show me where he kept the popcorn.

"Jean Paul," I noted, "I could have found that on my own. I can find where Cartier keeps the loose emeralds; I can manage 'packet of Orville Redenbacher in the basket on top of the microwave.' You don't need to follow me around like a puppy."

"Sorry."

"And don't apologize so much! You've got a broken leg for heaven's sake. I'm just saying don't mess with the crutches if you don't have to."

"Right, sorry. I mean – RIGHT!"

I couldn't help but laugh. He's very odd, but it's not a completely irritating odd.

The popcorn was done before he got himself back to his chair. We sat for a few minutes eating in awkward silence, when I saw a _Sex and the City_ sleeve sitting on the table. I asked if he had been watching it. He turned beet red and sputtered like Jervis sampling red-hot chili sauce.

"I— ei— ah— oh sure— well, I—I—I—"

And this is what took Bruce's place on the rooftops. He suddenly seemed like such a miserable little _mouse_. There is a cat in me. Whatever else is true or not about Catwoman, that much I've always known. There is a cat in me and nothing will bring her out like the wretched squeak-squeak of a sniveling little mouse.

"Why Pheromones," I purred, "Get a hold of yourself. It's just a fun little comedy… about sex… in the city… If that all it takes for you to go to pieces, you better not go out there after dark."

The mouse ran into his hole. Which should have made me feel better but didn't. He was looking down at his cast, scratching the surface compulsively even though he wouldn't be able to feel a thing under all that plaster.

I took a breath. Way to go, Selina.

"I'm sorry, Jean Paul."

Nothing.

"Jean Paul, look at me."

Nothing.

"That's looking down at your cast. Look _ UP_ at _ME_."

Third time's a charm. He looked up.

"I'm sorry," I said, "That was rude, and I didn't come over here to be rude to you. You have a way of… ruffling my fur sometimes. I get catty. I apologize."

"Why _did_ you come over?" he mumbled.

I didn't answer at first. It was a more complicated question than it seemed.

"Because Bruce told you to," he concluded.

"Yes and no. Well No, because nobody _TELLS_ me to do anything and you should know that by now. But on the Yes side of No, he did _ask_ me to come, and that's why I came over in the first place and that's why I brought cookies. But it's _not_ why I've stayed."

He cocked his head a bit and raised an eyebrow, an odd little combination of skeptical crimefighter and confused puppy dog.

"He told me you and Riddler are friends," Jean Paul said finally, his baffled tone tipping the balance towards the puppy.

"Oh come on, you silly putz. It wasn't that hard to follow. For pity sake, you're going to be throwing 'feline logic' at me next. _Yes_ Bruce asked me to come, but I've stayed for reasons of _my own _which I will get to if you'll just pipe down, stop being annoying, and let me get on with it…"

This look crossed his face that I recognized from the Watchtower. Batman and Martian Manhunter talking – arguing rather – telepathically.

"Your imaginary friend should pipe down and stop being annoying too, Jean Paul, because this is me being nice, believe it or not. And that has an expiration date. So tell Az to take a Midol. Now then, You obviously can't continue to help me out on the demonspawn matter because you've only got one good leg for the next few weeks—"

"The demonspawn matter?" he asked.

"Talia Twitterhead running around town in a fake catsuit, you didn't think I'd forgotten about that, did you? I don't intend to let something like that pass. I'll be visiting her soon – solo." He looked disappointed and I realized that, bat-impostor or no, men are men and those XY egos need tending to as regularly as any of Pammy's exotic orchids. "Which I can do, since you were able to pinpoint where she was staying. That was some first-rate work, Jean Paul, I doubt Oracle herself could have done it so quickly. So. It started me thinking, since we can't work together on Talia anymore, maybe you could help me out that same way, behind the scenes, researching another matter."

A new look crossed his face. I'd seen that one before too: Eddie sitting down with a crossword, Jervis panting to spread some fresh gossip, Whiskers hunkering down with a catnip mouse. I had him. When the idea first occurred to me, it was just to give him something to do. It's boring as hell being laid up that way. But after Dick let it slip about that riddle, a more practical reason suggested itself: having my own personal Oracle to work on whatever it was Bruce was hiding from me.

"Do we have a deal?" I purred, knowing the answer already, "Or do you have to flip a coin or something?"

"I'll do it, Catwoman," he answered – and his voice had a slightly different timbre. It wasn't the bat-voice, but there was an edge. "It sounds… like an interesting challenge."

* * *

Wayne Manor was home to Dick for so many years, he didn't bother calling ahead before coming over. Since he wanted to see Alfred rather than Bruce, he let himself in the kitchen rather than ringing at the front door. The kitchen itself was empty, and all Dick found in the butler's pantry was Nutmeg curled up on Alfred's chair enjoying a nap.

Dick assumed Alfred must be somewhere in the house, so he checked the drawing room… the morning room… the study… And finally just as he was trying to decide whether to go up to the bedrooms or down to the cave next, the clock passage opened and Bruce walked out.

"Alfred's out shopping," he announced curtly. "Market day."

Dick didn't bother to ask how Bruce knew he was looking for Alfred and Bruce didn't bother to explain. He always knew things; he was Batman.

"Isn't that Tuesdays and Fridays?" Dick asked, remembering the routine from when he was growing up.

"Monday and Thursday now," Bruce replied. "So he and that French chef next door can keep an eye on what each other buys."

"You're kidding."

"That's the way Alfred explained it to me."

"That's so bizarre."

"I wouldn't press him about it," Bruce grumbled, "The one time I did he said he doesn't tell me how to stake out Joker's hacienda."

Dick laughed. "Well I won't ask him about that, but I really do need to ask him something. I'm in it deep with Barbara. Quickest way out is for me to learn to cook an omelet." Bruce glared and Dick quickly diagnosed the source of his mentor's disapproval. "It's marriage-logic, Bruce, not detective logic." That led to a new sound, somewhere between a grunt and a sigh, which Dick could also translate. "I know, I know, you hate it whenever something won't fit into one of your categories. Would it help if I called it a marriage-protocol?"

"It would help if you didn't pretend there is an entirely different set of rules for dealing with a woman just because you put a ring on her finger."

"But there are. And it's not a bad thing either, Bruce. I mean look at this tiff with Babs. She's all pissed at me 'cause of how I treated Jean Paul the other night. Big whoop. It's not like 'Oh shit, I'm back to dateless Saturday nights for the rest of my life.' It's time in the penalty box, but I know I'm not _off the team_."

The grunting-sigh resounded, and Dick was about to say more when the doorbell rang. He stopped to grab an apple as Bruce went to answer it, then Dick followed to the foyer. When he got there, Bruce was signing for a delivery. What Dick noticed at once was a stiff tension emanating from Bruce that hadn't been there before. The deliveryman handed over a box and Dick instantly saw why. The box was green and covered in question marks. The dots below each mark were not painted circles but round air holes through which a plaintive mewing could be heard.

* * *

I had returned to the Parkview, Talia's hotel, and was trying to decide how to proceed. Once upon a time, when Bruce and I first got together, this psychotic harpy came to my apartment for a catfight. She came into my bathroom for the confrontation, if you can believe that. I was tempted to return the favor now, because as I let myself into her suite, I heard the sound of the shower running. It was an appealing thought, surprising her in her bathroom just as she had done me. It had just the right touch of payback. Except for one thing: that original confrontation ended in the shower stall. And I believe very strongly that if two women have issues involving a man, it is important for the dignity of everyone involved that nobody gets wet. You want to avoid swimming pools, fountains, sprinklers, garden hoses, and yes, bathtubs.

I was in her suite, but that was as far as I planned to go. I would wait – it was only a few minutes, but what I noticed in that time changed the whole course of what I wound up saying to her. Polo. I smelled Ralph Lauren's Polo. Bruce said that Greg Brady was having dinner with Talia last night; evidently he'd made it up to her room. Hm.

"How dare you break into this place, you miserable cat-thief!" my favorite psycho screeched from the doorway – and that absolutely settled it. The minute I saw her I knew I was right about the Polo. Beneath all the foot stomping from being intruded upon and the horror of Catwoman sitting in her furniture, she had the undeniable glow of someone who's needed a good bunny-humping for ages and finally got one.

"You chose Option #2," I answered dryly while she knotted and reknotted the belt of her hotel robe like she had a grudge against it. "You did _have_ options you know, when LexCorp tanked. You could have gone back to daddy, you could have found yourself a new protector, or you could have _evolved_. Did you even stop to consider that one at all?"

"Get out."

"Guess not. You're a remora in 400 shoes. Why bother evolving when you can just follow the fin."

"GET OUT OF HERE, YOU HELLACIOUS HELLCAT."

"Oh calm down, Talia, I'm leaving soon enough. But first, like it or not, we're going to have a talk. The less you interrupt, the sooner it will all be over. 'kay?"

She gave the robe belt another really vicious knotting but said nothing more. I obviously had the floor… and that alone was quite telling. She was just going to stand there and let me spank her.

"You know Talia, there was a time I figured I hated you more than anybody, but it occurs to me that I'm not even close. _You're_ the one that really hates your guts. I mean, look at yourself. In one week: you bankrupt Luthor's company. You try to frame me – which by the way seems to have honked off Bruce and Azrael ten times more than it did me and I'm plenty pissed. You put a hit out on Eddie and, as anybody will tell you, fucking with my friends is a quicker route to blood loss than prancing around town in a catsuit you don't have the figure for. And now, to top it all off, you start screwing Daddy's #1 man in Gotham. 'Death wish' does not begin to cover it, this is The Rube Goldberg Suicide Machine. Ten thousand years of human history, nobody has ever devised a more convoluted Dadaesque way to kill themselves— And I'm totally wasting my breath here, aren't I."

"Are you quite through, she-cat?" she asked with a raised eyebrow.

I sighed.

"So this is what Bruce was bashing his head against for years, hm? No wonder the mere sight of you gives him a headache. No, I'm not _quite_ done yet. Because your crowd is bad enough when you're gunning for the rest of the world. But seeing one of you turn all that destructive creativity on yourself, that isn't nearly as entertaining as I would have thought. It's embarrassing is what it is. You're an embarrassment to—"

"Let me save you some time," she interrupted coolly. "I have already had a number of women tell me what an embarrassment I am, and how I am a disgrace and have lowered the ceiling and set back the cause and betrayed the sisterhood and disempowered all our daughters for decades to come!"

Well she _started off_ cool, but by the time she was betraying the sisterhood she had worked back up to a shriek. I had a hunch why that might be. Dinner with Greg Brady dinner in a Gotham restaurant, and I was at D'Annunzio's recently enough to know what the ladies who lunch were saying about Talia when she _wasn't_ in the room.

"This was at the restaurant last night?" I asked quietly.

"Yes. … In the powder room."

"The ladies can be vicious," I probed.

"Quite." Her tone was crisp – controlled – and very unconvincing. They really got to her. "At least with you, vermin slut though you are," she announced, "I know the nature of your grievance. You covet the man whose heart will always be mine. But these women, I did nothing to them. They… may have suffered some small financial reversals as a result of the LexCorp situation, nothing more. The same was true of their husbands, but the comments of the men in the dining room were nothing compared to the wanton venomous attacks of those women—"

I couldn't help but laugh – not as I had at our first meeting to belittle her overblown pride, but from genuine amusement. Talia al Ghul was one of the great comic creations – what made it funnier still is that she thought she was a tragic queen, Juliet, Medea and Helen of Troy with a spritz of Chanel #5.

"What you did to them Talia," I explained briefly, though I doubted she could ever understand, "Is you _got in_. You got into the_ boys club_. And there would be jealousy from that no matter what. But here's where you really messed up. You failed. They let you in and you screwed it up. That's where all the resentment is coming from. You proved all the gender crap right."

"You believe this to be so?"

"Yes. Given what they know of you, that is the reason they hate you."

"I see."

She glared at me with pure loathing and I glared back. We both felt the need to clarify that ninety seconds of (comparatively) civil conversation didn't make us friends.

"Now if they knew you better," I added quickly, "they would have a whole different list of reasons to hate you."

"You will never have him," she declared, Helen of Troy in her big scene.

"Goodbye, Talia," I said sweetly, standing to go. "I'm sorry you're so needy and desperate for validation that you have to invent a romance where it doesn't exist."

I went to the door and opened it. "I'm sorry your life is so completely pathetic and devoid of substance that you require a man to be the scaffold for every thought and impulse of your being."

I left and turned for the parting shot – happy to be back on catfighting terms with the demonspawn and happier still that nobody had to get wet. "Nevertheless, my pity for your dismal non-self notwithstanding, Bruce is _still_ too busy to waste his time carrying the dead weight of your soul. He's doing more important things, like breathing."

* * *

After the episode with Whiskers sneaking into the cave, Bruce thought it best to examine the feline contents of Riddler's package in the study rather than taking it down to the Batcave as he would to analyze any other potential evidence.

Technically it was addressed to Selina, but he saw no reason to delay on that score. The box obviously contained a live cat… Well, "obvious" was never something you took on faith where the Riddler was concerned. Nigma had been known to outfit a baby carriage with a recording of a crying baby and enough explosives to put a hole in the world. But a close examination of the box for tripwires and other traps, and a closer inspection of the contents through the holes, only revealed little patches of tan and black fur inside moving in perfect sync with the plaintive mewling, leading Batman's final conclusion to confirm Bruce's first observation: the box obviously contained a live cat. Opening it at once would be the logical way to proceed even if it wasn't from a known felon, known to be active at the moment, and known to be pursuing a cat-theme… Still, for all that was "known" Bruce couldn't help but feel those meowing question marks were mocking him.

He used a letter opener from the desk to carefully pry open the top. A chubby furry face, black white and tan, with pale yellow eyes and a pink nose looked up at him. He glared down at it. It meowed back.

The meow was slightly less troublesome coming from the cat than from the riddling box… Slightly. But not much. He had an urge to interrogate the little beast — which was, of course, ridiculous. Just having the thought made him feel ridiculous. Fortunately, at that moment, he heard the front door open and a cat he _could_ press for answers clip-clipped across the foyer.

"Selina, would you step in here a moment?" he called.

Clip-clip-clip and she appeared in the doorway.

"Meow," she said.

"Meow" the cat answered.

"Yeah, Meow," Bruce grumbled. "Look at this. We've got trouble."

"Oh look at you, aren't you the sweetest little thing," Selina cooed, ignoring Bruce entirely and fussing over the cat. "Where did you come from, you little ragamuffin?"

She saw the cat's tag before the box. "Flummox," she read. Then she bit her lip. "Somebody named you Flummox? Oh lord." She looked up at Bruce, who was now holding the box up for her to see. "Eddie," she said flatly.

"Obviously," he graveled. It was Batman's voice, she noticed immediately, and bristled.

"Just like you to go jumping right into Bat-mode without stopping to consider there might be a perfectly natural – oh but wait, you _do_ have a reason don't you. There's that riddle you never told me about."

"How did you know about that?" he asked coldly.

"Does it matter? I didn't find out from you."

"This isn't the time to go into it."

"It's NOT?! We got a question mark cat here called _Flummox_, if this ISN'T the time to talk about the Catwoman riddle, I can only guess you're waiting for 'Tell-your-girlfriend-why-you-didn't-mention-the-riddle-and-goggle-picture Day.'"

He stared for a long moment – not at her, but at the cat.

"That first riddle did hint that a Catwoman clue would be next," he murmured, clearly ignoring her question and moving on to bat-business. "It's overdue, in fact. And now this shows up. But why send it to you? Unless I'm supposed to know that it's overdue and go looking for it. It's a new twist, getting the Catwoman clue from Catwoman, maybe that's what was meant all along. He knows you're with Bruce Wayne now but could still be playing 'Bat and Mouse' games on the side so…"

"Bruce, could we put the crimefighter in the box for five blessed minutes and talk about this? This is _relationship_ not crime. Pointy ears does not handle relationship, remember, because _he sucks at it_."

"I'm trying to keep you from becoming Nigma's next target here."

"Eddie's not going to make me a target of anything. Leave him out of this, leave the cat, leave the bat, just you and me, 5's a crowd… You're not even listening to me."

"There is another possibility."

"Yeah, there's the possibility Greg Brady is the secret mastermind behind this whole thing, playing all sides against the middle so he can run off with the demonspawn. Can't believe that didn't occur to you day one."

"Selina. There's the possibility… that Riddler knows?"

She sucked in her breath and looked down at the cat, then up at Bruce again.

"No. He couldn't. Could he?"

"It's a prospect I'm forced to consider from time to time. Usually I can dismiss it pretty easily. This time I'm not so sure. He's sending clues to the house – and for some reason Talia wanted him killed."

Selina started examining the cat with more interest, then turned her attention to the box. "There's a note in here. Did you see this?"

Bruce was instantly at her elbow. "I hadn't. I'd only opened it when you came in."

Selina skimmed quickly. "Straightforward. Says he picked up the cat in an alley by the Parkview Hotel – that's where she's staying all right, it all fits together, we know he was there."

"We're not a shelter," Bruce spat. "That's not even a plausible cover story."

"He doesn't need 'a plausible cover story'; he's a friend, it's a cat…"

"We are not an animal shelter."

"It doesn't mean I wouldn't know anybody that might want a cat."

Bruce gave a thoughtful look that slowly morphed into a disquieting smile. "Yes, that's true."

* * *

The real Catwoman's entry into The Parker Exchange was accomplished in half the time as the impostor's and with far greater efficiency. She had installed videoloops onto the surveillance cameras and gassed the guards within moments of her arrival, preempting the possibility of visual evidence or unwanted interruptions of the events to unfold.

Unlike the impostor, she wasted no time attempting to dismantle the alarms in the display base for the Kimberly Canary, eighth largest yellow diamond in the world. She merely took a claw and etched a large question mark into the Lucite case, followed by an arrow pointing to the left. Then she made herself comfortable in the darkened alcove where the arrow pointed… and waited.

An hour later she had the opportunity of observing Riddler's arrival at a crime scene for the second time in her professional career. The first was when she'd just returned to Gotham, a simple cat burglar without a costume or moniker. It was that chance encounter with Edward Nigma that nudged her along to becoming Catwoman1. His manner now was just as cocky as it had been that night… IDing the electric eyes, circumventing the pressure panels… right up until he reached the case and saw her love note etched into the glass. He turned slowly in the direction of the arrow.

"You still strut," the darkened alcove observed in Catwoman's voice. "Nobody to see, you know. I nixed the cameras."

"Clever kitty," he remarked dryly. "But _you're_ here. That's audience enough, but not the one I was expecting."

Catwoman leaned forward into the light.

"Bad form, Eddie. Not starting off with a question? For shame. Allow me: What do you think you're doing, Edward?"

"What do _you_ think I'm doing, Lena?"

Selina raised an eyebrow beneath the mask.

"It _looks_ a lot like you're trying to make trouble for me – and I'm just wondering why that might be." She rubbed the claws of her right thumb and index finger together thoughtfully.

"And how could I, a humble hobbyist in the ancient art of posing puzzles, make mischief for you, my favorite feline?"

"You're not 'humble', Eddie, but we're making allowances for alliteration, yes?"

He turned his attention back to the case and traced the question mark scratched into its surface thoughtfully, then looked back towards Catwoman.

"A riddle for you, Selina. Why are such good friends as we sparring with words? Are we… jockeying for position? Sizing up – an opponent?"

She laughed. "Don't be ridiculous, Eddie. We both know if it came down to it I could kick your ass. And since neither of us wants that outcome, there's no reason for it to occur, now is there?"

"Touché. And the duel continues. Which brings us back to the original question: why are we dueling at all?"

"Why did you send me that cat?"

"Do you have to ask?"

Catwoman glared and took a step forward.

"This isn't a parlor game, Eddie. This isn't who can answer the most questions with a question."

"Why are you here, Selina?"

"Why do you THINK?! Because I already have two cats and that's quite enough for one lap. So I gave that adorable little furball you sent me to Dick and Barbara. Dick & Barbara GRAYSON, Eddie. Bludhaven PD and the goddamn commissioner's daughter. The ones that look at me funny at every family dinner wondering what the wily cat is up to…"

"Oh come off it, Lena, you were a bridesmaid at their wedding."

"Yes and the ruffles made my ass look big. You think any of that matters to cops and copspawn?"

Nigma bit his lip thoughtfully.

"So Grayson knew a cat-riddle was due and turned Flummox over to be inspected, that's what I'm supposed to believe, eh? And then what, Bats finds the next key in the collar and instead of coming by himself he sends YOU to stop me?! I don't think so, Lena. I don't think that's likely at all."

"Eddie you're ranting, do stop, it's unattractive. Do you really think I would let them see the real collar once I knew something was hidden in it? I'm the one that found your little clue that spelled out 'canary', and that's why I'm here. I don't know why I'm 'not the audience you were expecting', _you_ sent me the thing."

"Y-yes," Nigma answered, chewing on this new idea. "I suppose I did… in a way." An idea that hadn't occurred to him was always suspect. "Grayson really doesn't trust you?"

"No. Of course not. He assumes I'm after Bruce's money."

Nigma watched his friend critically. "Yes of course. The money. Why else would you _possibly_ be interested in a man like Bruce Wayne."

Selina met his gaze levelly. "Careful, Eddie."

"I mean it, Selina, what else could possibly attract you to that simpering… airhead… fop."

"You better not be suggesting what I think you are."

"Course not, 'Lena, there's a _rule_ against that, isn't there."

She said nothing, and Nigma continued.

"Thou shalt not insinuate… about the cat… and the …"

He never finished the sentence. The room was silent except for the faint vibration of a stagnant alarm system… joined a few moments later by the soft hum of a distant air conditioner… and finally a siren blocks away.

"If it were true," Selina said finally, "Then Hugo is right. Hugo got there first. _Hugo Strange_, Eddie. Hugo figured it out before the great Edward Nigma. If you go to bed every night for the rest of your life telling yourself that you worked it out by virtue of that magnificent brain and all Strange did was stumble onto it like a drunken fratboy into a dumpster, then maybe, just maybe, you'll manage to convince yourself before you die. But make your little theory public, you'll never convince the rest of the world. All of them, Joker, Harley, Doris – Batman himself – _everybody_, will know Hugo got there first."

"What an interesting conundrum you place before me, Kittycat."

"Not really. Like I said, that's all 'if it were true.' There are eight billion – and one – other reasons I could be with Bruce."

"Eight billion following a dollar sign. That's not your style, Lena."

"No it's not. That just leaves one, doesn't it."

"I see. All right well… I guess that's that. Only leaves one more question, so riddle me this, Kitty: How hard are you going to make it for me to leave with that pretty, pricey, yellow rock?"

* * *

Four blocks from the Parker Exchange the Batmobile sat well concealed in a shadowy midtown loading dock. Batman sat within, waiting… waiting… staring like a man hypnotized at a small console displaying a grid of the city… waiting…

At last the little blip, a nanite transmitter embedded on the Kimberly Canary, quivered. It did nothing more but vibrate in place for ten seconds or so… it was in motion, Batman knew, but hadn't moved far enough to change position on the grid. After interminable seconds it jumped to a box to the right and then continued its stationary vibration… ten seconds more and it jumped again.

In contrast to the diamond's painful slowness, Batman's heartbeat raced. The diamond in motion meant Selina had finished her little… _chat_ with Nigma. How he hated the thought of it, of any of them alone with one of his enemies. He would be tense, certainly, if it was Dick or Tim confronting Scarecrow on their own or Cassie or Stephanie alone with Clayface. But it was worse with Selina and Eddie - simply because she _wasn't_ in danger. That had been her position when they discussed it: Eddie was her friend and whatever might go down they would never really hurt each other. Bruce had insisted otherwise, every fiber of his being resisted such reckless complacency, especially with one of the most formidable rogues. But in his heart, in the privacy of his own mind, he would admit she was _probably_ right. And that made it so much worse. It underscored the divide between them. Riddler, the criminal, his nemesis, was _Eddie,_ her friend, that wouldn't hurt her.

It wasn't a thought he liked dwelling on and he willed the damnable little blip to make its way down the grid so Batman could get on with chasing down that criminal scourge and pounding his fist into that smug, riddling face. At last the little yellow circle complied and the Batmobile eased into motion.

Ten minutes later Batman scrutinized the building where the stolen diamond had been taken. It didn't look like a typical hideout, and a quick sweep with the infrared confirmed that the closed businesses on the ground level were as unoccupied as they appeared. There was a light on in the room above, and Batman approached the window cautiously. Peering inside, he saw the diamond was in plain sight – an obvious trap – sitting there, two chairs positioned around the table where it lay. The chair nearest the window was turned out slightly like an invitation.

"What did the wolf say when he coughed up a sheep that didn't agree with him?"

Batman said nothing, and Nigma waved for him to come inside.

"I've been expecting ewe."

Batman glanced around the room with cautious eyes long attuned to the subtlest signs of rigged windows, electric eyes, and other accoutrements of gimmicked hideouts. Reasonably satisfied that there was no trap about to close on him, he crawled through the window – but pointedly ignored the proffered chair. He stood, but Nigma sat, then leaned back in the chair, making a show of his ease.

"That diamond is stolen. I'm taking you down."

"I don't think you can do that, Bruce," Nigma answered conversationally. "No, I really don't see how you can go shipping me off to Arkham now. Not with what I know. No telling who I might talk to in a place like that, now is there?"

Batman's face betrayed nothing. He knew of all his enemies the one most likely to one day penetrate his secret was the one who saw it as a riddle ("Who is under the Batman's mask?"), had a compulsion to solve riddles, and the intelligence to do so. He long knew this was a possibility, and had long ago constructed protocols should it occur.

"What time is it when an elephant sits on a fence?" Batman asked flatly2.

"Time to get a new fence," Nigma answered suspiciously. "Everyone knows that one. It's worthless."

"That's why I have nothing to fear from you. Your compulsion. A riddle everyone knows the answer to is 'worthless.'"

Nigma lowered his eyes, raised a finger as if he'd thought of a loophole, then lowered both his finger and his eyes together as if they were connected by an invisible string.

"You know," he said, resuming the conversational tone with which he'd begun, "That really is most disappointing."

Batman took the diamond from the table and turned back towards the window with a frightening economy of movement, the cape swooshing dramatically around a body that seemed removed from any physical exertion.

"You'll get over it," he graveled, stepping towards the window.

"Not that!" Nigma exploded, surprising Batman so much that he spun back to face his adversary, pivoting automatically into a defensive stance. But Nigma still sat, unmoving. There was no attack to defend against. Nigma merely looked rather… hurt? "One imagined you would have some bit of intellectual bait-and-switch ready to keep the big secret under wraps, old boy. So did _the kitten_." He spat the last words with disgust. "Hers was better, by the way. 'Cept neither one of you went for the most convincing argument of all. Neither one of you said, 'Hey, telling the world would have a really serious impact on Selina's life and not for the better. Do I really want to do that to her?' That angle doesn't occur to anybody but me? And _I'm_ the one with a compulsion? I don't think so! Hugo Strange and elephant sits on fence, that's what the brain trust at the manor comes up with. Worthless riddle? I'll tell you a worthless riddle: What profits a man if he solveth the puzzle of puzzles but doesn't know who his friends are? Chew on that one a while. _Bruce_."

Bruce grunted, in true bat fashion, considering those words for a moment, and Nigma's chest swelled a bit as he mentally awarded himself the first point on this new gameboard.

"Then you riddle me this, _Edward_," Batman finally countered, "When does a friend stop being a friend? When he uses you to get to his enemies." Then, added more as a declaration than a request: "No more clues to the manor, addressed to Selina. _Ever_."

Eddie glanced down at the table, twinging slightly at the rebuke but having that same I-don't-take-orders-from-flying-rodents reaction that Selina always did. When he glanced back up to respond, the room was empty.

He expelled the deep breath he didn't realize he'd been holding.

"Riddle me this, riddle me that," he mumbled, getting up from the table and straightening the knickknacks around the room as if tidying up for the night, "tit for tat, bat and cat, flying rat… wink at… combat… play at… splat." He nodded satisfied, then switched off the light. "Still plenty of material to work with, old boy… Brass hat… bridle at… wrestling mat…"

* * *

…to be concluded…

* * *

(1) See Selina's origin story, _Cattitude_, Chapter 3.

(2) Dialogue from Batman's "protocol" in the last scene taken from Jeph Loeb's HUSH


	10. Evolution

**Strange Bedfellows  
**_Chapter 10: Evolution_

* * *

**DEATH MAIDENS CLAIM RA'S AL GHUL**  
Dateline Birgunj: Ecoterrorist Ra's al Ghul (whose name means "Flower of the Prophet") is believed dead following a bloody _coup d'etat_ led by his own family members. Stabbed to death at his summer home in the hills overlooking Birgunj, the enigmatic al Ghul was rumored to have fathered numerous children at Woodstock and other notorious "Love ins" in the 1960s …

Bruce had read the preposterous article twice. He skimmed the headline and opening paragraph one final time before setting down the Gotham Post with a wry lip-twitch, then he poured a small amount of milk into his coffee, stirred, and tasted it.

Across the table, Selina eyed him suspiciously. "No grunts?" she observed skeptically. "Luthor's resignation got six. Torching the cadaver like a marshmallow on a stick doesn't rate any kind of grumbly vocal acknowledgment?"

Bruce's lip spasmed markedly. "The Times's meticulously professional coverage of Luthor's resignation –which _actually occurred_– did have consequences worth considering. The Post trying to pass off this fever dream of a supermarket psychic as news…" His lip twitched again, and then morphed into one of the more charming foppish grins, "…not so much." He winked and sipped his coffee.

Selina continued to stare while Bruce looked through the small stack of morning newspapers, setting aside the discarded Post, bypassing the Times and Daily Planet, and settling at last on the Wall Street Journal.

"Was that a smile?" she asked incredulously as the shock wore off and she regained control of her tongue.

Bruce thumbed through his Journal, evidently looking for a particular article. "As for burning him," he remarked conversationally into his newspaper without looking up at her, "I don't think so. A funeral pyre might be fine for grand opera, the last act of Siegfried or whatever, but Ra's is 1500 years old… I don't even want to think about what the insides might smell like."

She raised an eyebrow doubtfully, which Bruce didn't appear to notice.

"It's the Post, Selina," he said lightly, turning the paper back on itself once he found what he was searching for, "Even by the standards of a tabloid that once reported the death of a Soviet head of state with the headline 'DEADSKI REDSKI', this story is absurd. I don't know why they don't just reuse an old obituary like most papers do since, you know, he keeps dying."

Bruce held up his newspaper, leaving Selina to stare at a front page article on Wayne Tech's acquisition of several former LexCorp subsidiaries and the consequent salvaging of 40,000 jobs. She gave the word "Wayne" the full benefit of her hardest cat-glare, but it had little effect on the figure behind the newsprint. The silence went on for several minutes as Bruce read whatever article he was looking at and Selina stared ineffectually at the back of his paper. When she got tired of this, she picked up the day's menus, left beside her place at the table, and pretended to read them. This was a contest of wills and she didn't mean to lose.

"So when do I get a look at these cat powers?" Bruce asked lightly from behind the paper.

"That does it!" Selina caved, "What the hell is going on with you?"

Bruce lowered his newspaper and blinked up at her, startled by the reaction.

"What?" he asked in genuine surprise.

"Cheerful. Smiling. Joke! – At least it better have been a joke."

"Oh. Sorry," he said simply. "You've been saying all this time how ridiculous the tabloids have gotten - _and_ how I go overboard anytime Ra's is mentioned – that I shouldn't take it all so seriously…" As he spoke, he underwent that bat-mode density shift and then grunted. Selina stared again, more confused than ever, and Bruce set the newspaper aside thoughtfully. "We _should_ talk," he graveled, "You were asleep when I got in last night."

"Actually I wasn't. I just curled up because I didn't want to deal with it anymore. I figured it would wait until morning…. So. You talked to Eddie."

Bruce grunted the affirmative.

"How screwed are we?" Selina asked frankly.

"He'll keep quiet. He knows something none of the rest of them do. That will appeal to his sense of superiority."

"So the 'worthless riddle' angle worked?"

"Yes…. Yes but…" he trailed off.

"Uh oh. 'Yes _but'_, you can't leave it at that. What's 'Yes but'?"

"Nigma will keep quiet because of his compulsion. But that's not the reason he gave. He claims that —You know how you had said you and he wouldn't hurt each other— He says he'll keep it to himself because making my identity public would adversely affect you."

"How very clinically you put that," Selina observed, "Like one of those tech stocks in the Journal reacting to the LexCorp buyout."

Waves of crimefighter disapproval pulsed across the breakfast table like it was Cartier's rooftop.

"Don't look at me like that, Dark Knight; you're curdling the milk," Selina chided, picking up the cream pitcher with a feline smirk, "I went to see Jean Paul, as you requested."

"Don't change the subject," Bruce ordered, still decidedly in rooftop mode.

"I'm not," Selina replied with a smile, which was certainly not her usual response to a bat-order. "I went to see Pheromones, even though I can't stand him, because you asked me to. And I am forced to admit that underneath the bat-impostor that I always detested and always will, there _is_ actually a human being inside Jean Paul Valley."

"So what? You want me to acknowledge a human side to Riddler? You want me to consider the possibility that he's learned this incredibly valuable secret and even though he's a villain and a rogue and a criminal he's just going to _sit on it_ because revealing it would hurt a friend and destroy a friendship?"

"That's the general idea, yes."

"No. It's too sane and too normal and—"

"And too human. And it involves a sensitivity toward others' feelings that you would prefer never to associate with any of them."

"Selina… don't. If I bend that far, I'll— I have to maintain a certain level of detachment in order to… do what I do."

There was a lengthy pause.

"Well I've never been a big fan of your 'detachment'," she reminded him crisply, "But I can understand what you're saying. I went to see Talia yesterday too while I was in town. …I was quite the social butterfly yesterday."

"So it seems. Is this also 'not changing the subject'?"

"It is. The demonspawn and I drifted into uncomfortably non-hostile waters for a few seconds."

"Oh?"

"Neither of us liked it much. We snapped right back into scratch and hiss form as soon as we possibly could. The thing is Bruce, I don't think you and Eddie are going to have that option."

"Neither do I," Bruce admitted, massaging the bridge of his nose. "Why did he have to— Damnit. The protocol _worked_, Selina, just like I always knew it would. Riddler's compulsion makes it impossible for him to tell; it would devalue the currency. Right now he's got the answer to the ultimate riddle in his pocket but if he makes it known, he's got nothing. It's that simple. Why did he have to— Why did he have to pretend it's anything more than that? Why did he have to drag you into it that way?"

"Lot of question marks there, Stud," Selina observed, sipping her coffee.

Bruce glared.

"Do you want the answer you'll like, or do you want the truth?" she asked.

"I'm curious to know what, in your view, is 'the answer I'll like.'"

"Ego. He wanted the last word and it was something to say."

"And the real answer, in your opinion, is?"

"You're not going to like it," Selina reminded him.

"Deceiving myself is not a luxury I can afford, Selina. It's too dangerous in this life."

She nodded and took a deep breath.

"Okay, you asked for it, here goes: Eddie made it personal because it is. He's in the same boat as you in a way. You've got a face for him now and a name and a girlfriend. You just became a person. And he doesn't like that development any more than you do."

"You're wrong."

"I know a little something about learning the name of the man in the mask, Bruce. I'm not wrong."

Bruce said nothing.

"It could be a lot worse," Selina observed. "Ra's could be dead. You could have had to torch him like a marshmallow on a stick, found out what the insides smell like after 1500 years. And by the way: Ew! not the image I want while I'm trying to have breakfast."

* * *

Ubu stood at the door to Ra's al Ghul's bedchamber, along with the messenger who delivered the fax from Metropolis, and the guard who insured the document was not tampered with while it was walked down the corridor from the communications center. They waited in tense silence while inside The Demon's Head read the American newspaper's account of his death.

Sitting up in his bed, Ra's had read the article through six times before satisfying himself that he was not misunderstanding the text. He was well-versed in English, more so than any of his men, but the jargon of those decadent Americans changed so rapidly. And of course there was danger in taking any report from Ulstarn at face value, the man was so excitable – not to mention paranoid. Ra's was indeed reluctant to take this report seriously simply because Ulstarn had been the first to send it.

But after six readings, Ra's was forced to conclude the outrageous story was every bit as libelous, treacherous and insulting as Ulstarn had said.

First there was this artist's rendering of his Imperial Person that made him look quite dead even though it was meant to represent him before his demise. Ra's would have been most grievously insulted by this affront (and ordered the artist assassinated as Ulstarn suggested) had he not noticed that all the other persons depicted by this same artist looked equally bereft of life.

Then there was that business about Woodstock again. Where do they get such notions?! As if the great Ra's al Ghul would sully his person with Western depravity - besides which The Demon's Head does not urinate in a field! And this was to have been Talia's conception. What effrontery. His offspring was conceived in the traditional manner of the Chinese Imperial heirs, with Ra's visiting all of his concubines in turn, in order of their rank, at precise intervals dictated by the Imperial time-keepers, building himself up, until finally it was time to consort with his official wife when the stars were in perfect alignment - And if Melisande had done her job and delivered him up a male like she was supposed to, the process would have yielded the most favorable characteristics in the offspring worthy to be called al Ghul.

And instead, what did he get for his trouble? "DEATH MAIDENS CLAIM RA'S AL GHUL" He was to have been murdered by his own daughter! Oh not his real daughter, perish the thought, but this _invented_ one. This Nyssa. How typically passive-aggressive of Talia, for Ra's had no doubt it was she who planted this outrageous story. Who else could it be? And what was this extra daughter he's suddenly presented with if not the return of Talia's imaginary friend from childhood, the one who had all the ideas about sneaking into the kitchens and sampling the sweets. Her ideas had now expanded to murdering him and assuming the title of Ra's al Ghul for herself. This story was a threat, nothing more or less, a treasonous threat, delivered in a cowardly passive-aggressive manner that was pure Talia.

"Ubu!" Ra's called out, calmly but with a volume to make himself heard through the heavy wooden door, "Ubu, kindly locate my daughter wherever she may be - I believe that Ulstarn can provide you with her present domicile - and tell her it is My Will that she present herself in the Imperial Presence at her earliest convenience."

* * *

Selina's remarks about Batman and Riddler being forced to recognize the other's humanity spurred Bruce on to complete the Zogger rebuild that afternoon. He itched to try it out. It was – gratifying – pounding all the ambiguities into a crisp _squaluch_ of flesh against canvas, _skrechhk_ flesh against wood, _smaurrk_ flesh against metal… The gnawing doubts about seeing the humanity in a criminal… of seeing his own humanity congealing around the perimeter of the Batman role… it could all be blotted out, if only for a second, in the sting of fist meeting force field.

It worked. It worked too well. He stayed at it too long, pushing too hard, and he hadn't checked the clock when he began. Three hours of intensive Zogger begun in late afternoon… by the time he switched it off, he was nearing muscle failure in his upper arms. He cursed himself, glaring at the clock.

Bruce had a scientist's understanding of physical law. That understanding knew better, but he allowed himself to hope that his peak physical condition would allow his muscles to recover in time for patrol. He went through the motions of dinner upstairs with Selina, a kiss on the cheek, then returning to the cave and the costume vault. He went through the formality of suiting up – he donned the leggings, the tunic, the boots, belt and cowl… But the tremor in his triceps as he reached for the cape could not be ignored.

He had said earlier that deceiving himself was not a luxury he could afford. He was in this condition because he wanted to blot out thoughts of his own humanity - and the mortality that went hand and hand with it. Deceiving himself _was not_ a luxury he could afford. He was a man, his body had limits, his muscles were pushed beyond the point where he could swing from the Batline. Period.

He informed Oracle, so that Nightwing, Robin, Batgirl and Spoiler could modify their patrols to accommodate his absence. He briefly considered the Watchtower – if he could swap monitor duty with whoever was on tonight, he could free up his next scheduled watch and give that night to Gotham… Except his next scheduled watch was Third Saturday, the secret poker game… the scheduling acrobatics J'onn went through each month to keep the players free and keep the non-players from learning of the event… There was no point in even trying to fiddle with it. So he had the evening free…

He checked the monitors of the security cameras in the manor, but there was no sign of Selina. He switched to the camera in the garage and saw her Jaguar was gone. She had already gone out for her prowl.

He sat back… and waited.

* * *

Greg wrapped the napkin around his fingertip and playfully wiped the last trace of hollandaise sauce off the corner of Talia's lip. Then he collected her plate and his onto the breakfast tray and set it outside the door for room service to collect.

He smiled wonderingly to himself as Talia answered the telephone. She really was something: she really did these things, the stuff you only see in old movies. "The morning after" and they had eggs benedict and mimosas from room service. You had to love that! He imagined a carriage ride in the park was next, or a picnic – or the picnic/carriage ride montage - with some snappy bit of 60s jazz, while they pointed to things and laughed.

"Hey sweetie," he started to say, when he noticed she was sitting on the edge of the bed, telephone still cradled in her hand, staring into space. "Sweetie? Talia? What's wrong, Hon?"

She said nothing at first, then looked up bewildered – like a deer in headlights.

"I am summoned," she murmured as if it were a death sentence, "I am summoned to my father at once. The Third Assistant to Ubu delivered the missive personally. I am to come now."

"I wouldn't," Greg said simply.

"But I am summoned," Talia repeated, as if perhaps the words weren't understood the first time.

"Yeah I heard. We got that around the Hacienda sometimes too. 'Come Now' – Just sayin', I wouldn't if it was me."

_"-I- -am- -summoned-,"_ Talia repeated yet again, hitting each word with equal emphasis.

"Yeah I got that," Greg assured her. "Look sweetie, he's your old man, I'm not gonna tell you what to do. But if it were Joker saying 'Come Now', and he had that glint in his eye, and it was a Thursday, I'd be walking the hyenas right now, not calling American Express booking the next flight to Nepal."

Talia stared unbelieving.

"Wait a few days," Greg cajoled, "he'll probably forget all about it."

Talia continued to stare.

"But even if he doesn't, it's better to let him blow his stack now and get there later once it's all resetting the trapdoors and sweeping up the broken glass."

"Not go?" Talia whispered, incredulous.

"Yeah. Miss the message. Go to Atlantic City for a few days. Or camping, I'll bet you've never in your life been camping, now have you?"

"One does not defy a direct command of The Demon's Head," Talia explained, although she would have thought the concept universally understood.

"Yeah but – he's your dad," Greg pointed out. "Demon's Head to _us_; Daddy to you. You never - what - broke curfew when you were 16?"

"To defy my father in the way you suggest is… unthinkable… We would be fugitives."

"C'mon, T! It's not exactly Harrison Ford diving off waterfalls and dodging trainwrecks for the rest of your life. It's laying low for a little bit, few days, weeks, months, whatever, til he cools down. Hey, you said 'we' – so I'm invited? That's great. You'll love it. Diners, biker bars, it'll be an adventure."

"No, that is not what I meant. This is not –"

"When was the last time you had an adventure, Talia?"

This was NOT what Talia had in mind from her new protector. It was also not the manner in which men implored her to defy her father. It was not… it was not ANYTHING akin to ANYTHING in her experience.

However…

How-ever…

The barbs of those women in the powder room still stung.

The words of the vermin slut did as well. A remora in 400 shoes… Just follow the fin…

She was still glowing from the only sex she'd had in 74 years and the only sex she'd had _ever_ where the man considered her pleasure part of the equation…

Her father would be furious.

Her father… would be _furious_.

It was suddenly not the most horrifying idea imaginable.

There was even… there was even… a certain appeal in that thought.

Her father … would be absolutely mad with rage.

"I'll do it," she whispered. "I shall go camping with you, Gr'oriBr'di. And I shall not answer this summons of my father until next Friday!"

* * *

Bruce sat in the cave before the cluster of monitors at workstation 3. Catvid-museum played in a reduced window on Monitor 1 and just beneath it was the feed of Selina in the morning room a few days before. He had watched them both for an hour, trying to make sense of it.

Behind him, he heard a faint rustling, Alfred collecting Bruce Wayne's shirt and trousers from the costume vault and replacing them with the silk kimono he could change into when he 'returned from patrol.'

"Good evening, Alfred," Bruce called, making his presence known.

There were a few more rustling sounds as Alfred finished what he was doing in the vault before joining Bruce at the monitors. "Good evening, sir," he replied at last. "You're home quite early. Does one dare to hope you are, for once, satisfied with the progress of the war on crime?"

Bruce grunted, opting not to explain that he had never gone out at all because he overexerted himself on Zogger.

For his part, Alfred was less interested in Batman's early return as he was in that "Good evening, Alfred." It might not be an earthshaking event under other circumstances, but coming from Bruce -in costume, in the cave and at an hour when Batman was normally out on patrol- it was a clear hint that Bruce wanted to talk. A glance at Monitor 1 revealed what the subject of that talk was to be.

"A most interesting video montage you are screening this evening, sir."

"I know," Bruce murmured, his voice deepened not with Batman's throaty gravel but with a slight undertone of guilt. "That's catvid-museum, earliest footage I have of her in action. And it's _Selina_. Selina is Catwoman. And there she is in the morning room… sipping her coffee." He pointed to the second window that showed the feed from just before Jean Paul's arrival. "Catwoman sitting at mom's desk - Selina slipping through the electric eyes with the Cézanne painting. It's the same woman, then and now. I know that intellectually. There's something _I'm missing _somehow." He sighed audibly. What was it that haunted him so? …Flopping onto her back with a tickled grin about that Post story… "I have cat-powers" …humming Rodgers and Hammerstein while she sat at the desk reading her mail… What was it that unnerved him about this?

Movement on Monitor 2 suddenly pulled his attention… It was receiving the feed from the perimeter cameras.

"She's back from her 'prowl'," he noted, "by her preferred route."

"Sir?"

"She parks her car in the old carriage house instead of the garage. She has nothing against keeping it in the garage at other times, right between the Bentley and the Porsche. But coming back from a prowl, it's always the carriage house. Watch." His lip twitched as he watched the images unfold exactly as he said. "I think it's because she likes coming back from a prowl on foot. Maybe she misses that from the city, rooftop to rooftop to her balcony and home. That's not possible out here, so she's adapted. The carriage house is just far enough to let her stretch her legs after the drive home, maneuver through the ground security, and take either the Spruce tree up to the bedroom window or else the Elms up to the roof to lower herself down to the East Balcony."

"Indeed, sir." Alfred was aware he wasn't saying much, but he sensed it was a time to listen.

"She adapted," Bruce repeated.

She was taking the bedroom route. She seemed to like it better, Bruce noticed, since she discovered that flaw in the window alarm – a flaw only a master thief would perceive and only razor sharp cat claws could exploit. He glanced back to the museum video… That flaw had been in place much longer than she knew.

Movement flickered on Monitor 3, the interior of their bedroom. Almost in sync, the Catwoman of the past entered the darkened museum on Monitor 1 as the Cat of the present padded into their darkened bedroom on Monitor 3. She left the lights off, even though it must seem as if she had beaten him home… she peeled off her costume and kicked it under the bed, then disappeared off the screen in the direction of the shower. This was her routine he was watching. Her routine in his house.

He looked back towards the tape of her in the morning room, then up at Alfred.

"She's growing beyond that aggressive, almost paranoid, protection of her independence," he said, repeating his thought from earlier in the week, "She's seeing that a life here doesn't have to threaten it. She's… evolving."

"Everyone does, sir," Alfred said softly. "Such changes are a natural part of life."

"It opens up possibilities," Bruce said flatly. He did not sound happy about the fact.

"Indeed, sir," Alfred agreed. "One possibility in particular. That too is a natural part of life."

Bruce's eyes flashed angrily at the words. It was a flash Alfred hadn't seen in years, not since Bruce was a teenager.

"When Clark launched his harebrained matchmaking scheme," Bruce said tersely, "I shut him down because _I_ knew, even if down-home cliché says otherwise, that it would have been a mistake. Both Selina and I are happy with what we have, and I am not about to jeopardize that with a push towards something neither of us are ready for."

"And this gradual change in Miss Selina, sir, would seem to indicate that may not be the case forever."

Bruce looked down, considering the words… they gave weight and substance to an idea he had not been able to put into words, an idea that had been fluttering around at the corners of his consciousness, vaguely unnerving him from the shadows.

"If she really did come around to the point where she was ready for that step…" he began hesitantly. Then what? That shifted the question to him. And he wasn't at all sure how he felt about that.

"Master Bruce, It is not at all atypical for bachelors of a certain age and stature in the world to resist any sort of entanglement that could—"

"I'm not a typical 30-something bachelor, Alfred," Bruce interrupted. "I'm not worried about losing my independence. I'm not afraid of becoming 'Mr. Selina Kyle,' that she's going to start deciding how we live, where we go, or who we see socially. Come on, get real. And it's not my 'stature' either. An ugly public breakup and 8-figure divorce settlement, that's the nightmare for rich men _without_ secret identities…" He sighed again and again looked at the monitor looping the catvid. "There is no prenup for taking off the mask with a woman you'd once… and I crossed that line a long time ago."

"It's nearly two years, sir, since you brought Miss Selina back with you from that getaway."

"Yeah the one you tricked me into taking. We've never talked about that, by the way."

Alfred coughed. "I'm sure I don't know what you mean, sir, a simple miscommunication about Master Dick's intentions with respect to your Father's Day gift."

"Save it," Bruce said with a rare smile. "We never _have_ talked about it, Alfred. What did you make of it, when I brought her back to the house? You knew she had gone away with 'Batman.'"

"I was surprised, Master Bruce, though hardly displeased. I was unaware your connection with the lady was that far along."

"Yeah," Bruce laughed, "_Neither was I._ All of a sudden I just… The roles had been _shifting_ for a while, we weren't exactly 'Batman' and 'Catwoman' with each other anymore but… you still don't quite _realize_ until… All of a sudden I just heard myself saying it… 'My name is Bruce'…"

"As I said before, sir, evolution is a natural part of life. For _everyone_."

Neither man spoke. The two videos loops continued replaying the images of the past while the two live feeds from the present slipped into idle awaiting movement… Bruce looked at each in turn, then looked back at his mentor and confidant, his eyes straining with emotion.

"I can't marry her, Alfred."

"Master Bruce," Alfred said gently, "Miss Selina already shares your home, your secrets, your bed, and most importantly, sir, your heart. As you have said, you bound yourself to her with far greater finality when you revealed your identity than you would in any ceremony. And, as you have also said, your… _qualms_… about formalizing the arrangement that already exists are not the usual ones. They are, as they must be for any man, unique to your own past and circumstances. One is therefore impelled to ask you, sir, what you believe them to be?"

"It's complicated."

"Undoubtedly sir. But not much of an answer."

Bruce's eyes flashed angrily again. Alfred was the only man alive who could challenge him this way. On the grand scale Bruce was grateful for that, but at moments like this he resented it bitterly.

"Contingencies," Bruce answered at last. "The tighter the knot, the harder to …extricate yourself if—"

"You have already dismissed that idea, sir. You said the divorce concerns of ordinary men of means were not—"

"OKAY, okay, yes – and no. Our lives aren't _normal_, Alfred, our careers aren't normal. There's nothing to be gained by trying to hammer them into a 'normal' relationship. I told her that at the very beginning. So why start messing with it now? The tighter the knot the… forget it."

"The tighter the knot, Master Bruce, the more of you it would rip out if it were torn away. And if I may observe, sir, that is the third time in the course of this brief conversation your eyes have flashed in anger. The last time I saw that particular flash was when you were 17 and asked to usher at your cousin's wedding. I venture to say, sir, that you have a certain _aversion_ to the institution of marriage and have had for some considerable time before your life become other than 'normal.' And you would do well, sir, to investigate those feelings honestly rather than—"

"Dressing them up in a bat-suit?"

Alfred nodded. It wasn't an expression he himself would have come up with, but it was apt – and what's more it was the kind of thing Selina might say.

"We're already so close," Bruce murmured, "closer than is prudent, probably. I've let her… make me _happy_. If that were taken away, if she were… I don't think I can expose myself that way, Alfred."

"Master Bruce, I am sure that you could find those who would say that, despite your best efforts, you already have."

Bruce stared at him in silence. "What, then? I should call it off now? It's… No… It's - already too late?"

"On the contrary, sir. I merely mention it to point out that even with that 'exposure', you have still managed to _remain _happy…"

Bruce began massaging his temples as Alfred went on talking. Damn her. If she'd just stayed where she was… as long as she wasn't ready he shouldn't have to deal with any of these questions. Damn her.

"…If I may be so bold, sir, it appears to me that the question isn't whether or not you feel—"

"Enough Alfred," Bruce cut him off, "that's all I can take right now. Let's just drop it… Damn her…"

"Sir?"

"LET'S JUST DROP IT, ALFRED! Enough. I don't want to get into this any further. Not now. It gets to be too much talk and talk about – I don't even know what anymore! Maybe for me marriage will always equal 'dead in an alley.'" Bruce stopped short, sickened and shocked at the harshness of his words. He had no idea where they had come from.

He looked up at Alfred, expecting an equally appalled look of astonishment. Instead Alfred seemed almost content.

"It's nothing you need come to terms with tonight, Master Bruce," he said calmly, picking up an empty coffee mug from the desk. "As you say, the lady isn't ready. Yet."

* * *

©2004, Chris Dee

NEXT:  
_She's not crazy, she's just a little unwell  
I know, right now you can't tell  
But stay a while and maybe then you'll see…_

Harley Quinn in  
**FOOL  
**


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